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Master's Theses Graduate College
8-1977
A Survey of the Relationship between Rhetoric and Music
Robert Stephen Brown
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This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A SURVEY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND MUSIC
by
Robert Stephen Brown
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the Dsgree of Master of Music
Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan August 1977
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE
This thesis is the result of a two-year study of the literary-
rhetorical tradition and its relationship to music, a relationship which
ultimately- led to the Baroque doctrine of the affections. Rhetoric, in
the ancient and non-pe jorativs sense, is a subject about which most per
sons in this country know very little ; in modern times it appears to be
reserved for classical scholars. A wealth of information is available,
however, and in the first two chapters of this study an attempt is made
to capsulize this history of rhetoric for the non-rhetorician and especial
ly the musician. As is noted elsewhere, though, the history of rhetoric
is indeed the history of Western civilization; almost everything one knows of that subject may be called upon in order to truly appreciate the his
tory of rhetoric. The third chapter attempts to draw parallels and dis
cuss relationships between that history and the history of musical theory
and practice from ancient times through the Enlightenment, when rhetoric
as an aesthetic tool lost its validity. It is hoped that this study will
be the basis for further relational work, for these relations are among
the most misunderstood concepts in music history.
I would like to thank my advisor and friend, Dr. David Sheldon, who
proposed this study, guided my research, answered my questions, and pro
vided an atmosphere conducive to serious thought. I would also like to
thank Dr. Joan Boucher, who aided in my assimilation of medieval and Ren
aissance culture, helped in the translations of material in French and
Latin, and otherwise freely gave of her time and support.
i i
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission MASTERS THESIS 13-10,447
BROW, Robert Stephen, 1952- A SURVEY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND MUSIC.
Western Michigan University, M.M., 1977 Music
Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL RHETORIC 1
Corax and the Invention of Rhetoric • « . » 1
Gorgias, Isocrates, and Fiato 3
Aristotle • ...... ••••••••• S
Rhetoric Between A risto tle and Cicero • « • 15
Cicero ...... 17
Quintilian and the Second Sophistic • • • • 23
Augustine ...... •••••••••••• 27
Martiaaus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts ••••«•••••»••••••• 29
The Shift From Rhetorics to Djalectlca • • 31
I I RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE RHETORIC 35
The Beginnings of Modem Rhetorical Theory •••«••••••••••••• 35
Hiiman< am ••••••••••••••••• 40
Neoplatonism ••••••••••••••• 52
Baroque Trends with Origins in the Renaissance •••••••••••••«• 55
Renaissance Rhetorical Treatises • * . • • 59
Rami am ••••*••••••••••••• 62 Latin Syntax ...... 71
The New A tticism •••••••••••«• 74
Seventeenth-Century French Rhetoric • • • • SO
Descartes •« •••••••••• S4
iii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. i v
Fort Royal • .....•••••••••• 95 Style Coupe ...... 101
OHfeS M B E S l...... 104 Lamy ••••••••••«.•«••••• 109
The Anti-Ciceroni an Movement in Italy . . . 117
Summary ...... • ••••••••••• 123
I I I RHETORICAL INFLUENCES ON MUSICAL THOUGHT 128
Music in Ancient Greece ..•••••««• 128
Musical Thought in the Middle Ages • . . . 134
Mimesis ..140
The Humanist Ideal in Music Theory • . . . 144
Dufay, Oekegham, and Josquin •••«••. 150
Musica R e s e r v a ta ...... ••••••154
Zarlino ••••••••.•«.•••... 160
Lasso and Wert .•••...•••«••• 165
French Speculation on Music in the Sixteenth Century •••••••••••• 167
...... 170
G alilei and Monody ••••••••.••• 173
Mersenne ••••••••«*••••••• 183
French Opera: Racine, Lully, and Lecerf .188
Rameau ...... 194
The Influence of French Theory on Germany >•»••••••••••.••• 201 Heinichen • o ...... • ••«••••• 203
Mattheson ••••• ...... •••••• 209
Conclusion •••••••••.•....• 216
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX: EIGHT DIVISIONS OF RHETORIC 220
The Divisions of Rhetoric In the Rhetorics, ad Herennimn «••••••••••••• 220
Elocutionls Virtutes et Vitia ••••••• 221
Quintilian's Division of Elocutio into Tropes and Schemes ••««•••••••222
Trapesuntius' Division of Rhetoric • • • • 223
Tabula D ivisionis Locrum of Bartholomew Latomus. a fte r Rodolphus Agricola • • • • 224
Ramus' Division of the Places of Dialectic 225
The Ramistic Division of Rhetoric by Fraunce ...... 226
Scaliger's Division of the Figures of Rhetoric • •••••••«••••••* 227
BIBLIOGRAPHY 228
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL RHETORIC
Corax and the Invention of Rhetoric
Rhetoric, "the systematic analysis of human discourse for the
purpose of adducing useful precepts for future discourse .*’1 is one of
the oldest disciplines in the Western world. At the same time, it
appears that the ancient Greeks were the only civilization which en
deavored to analyze the ways in which human beings communicate with
each other, for example, there is no evidence to suggest an interest
in rhetoric in the ancient civilizations of Babylon or Egypt, and 2 neither Africa nor Asia has produced a rhetoric to this day.
Greece is, therefore, the birthplace of the art of discourse,
which includes not only rh eto ric but also logic and grammar. A con
siderable body of indirect evidence indicates that a rhetorical con
sciousness developed in Greece long before textbooks on the subject
were written. Homer's Iliad, written well before 700 B.C., contains
many carefully organized "orations” that occur either in councils of
warriors or in debates between men and between gods.^
1 Murphy, James J . (e d .), A Synoptic History gf C lassical SheJjoj&g. New York: Random House, 1972, 3*
2ib id . %ee, for instance, Combellack, Frederick M., "Speakers and Scepters in Homer." C lassical Journal. XLIII (1948), 209-217. For a general discussion of rhetorical consciousness in early Greece, see Kennedy, George, The A jt o f Persuasion jn Greece. Princeton* Princeton University Press, 1963, 26-51.
1
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Early Greek drama, deeply rooted in song, gives further evidence
of the development of rhetoric. Rhetorical principles are to be found
in the structure of the kitharodie song (choir song) of the fifth cen
tury B.C. Its basis was the antithetical splitting of the dithyrambic
chorus, illustrating the Greeks 1 fundamental attraction to antithesis.
the pairing of opposites. 1 It was this spirit which led to systematic
debate of opposite sides in politics, to pairing of accusation and de
fense in law, and to exploration of contradictory statements in early
Greek logic. It is interesting to note the close ties between song
and rhetoric at this point in history, a relationship shared with drama
and the other Mousic arts as well; it is a closeness which withers,
only to reappear 2000 years later.
The first attempts to codify rhetorical practice of the time oc*
cured around 476 B.C. According to a tradition reflected in Aristotle,
Cicero, and Quintilian, rhetoric was "Invented1' in that year by Corax,
a resident of Syracuse in Sicily, and transmitted to mainland Greece
by his pupil Tisias. Unfortunately, none of their works have survived.
"*The kitharodie choir song of the fifth century B.C. was strictly regulated. Its main parts were: 1. the prooimlon. a short group of verses, the prologue of the drama; 2. the agSn. the choir-song proper, so termed because in it the acting choir competed with another part of the choir; and 3. the epilogue. According to the Rhetorics of Kordax of Sicily (confirmed also by Quintilian), this was the same structure of early rhetoric. See Sendrey, Alfred, Music in the Social and Reli gious Life of Antiquity. Cranbuxy, New Jerseys Associated University Presses, 1974, 332-333. 2ib id .
^A good discussion of this tradition may be found in Hinks, D.A.G., "Tisias and Corax and the Invention of Rhetoric." Classical Quarterly. XXXIV (1940), 59-69.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Certainly ty the 470's B.C., it had become clear that the objective of
a speaker was to persuade, that a given speech could be analysed as to
i t s p a rts , and th a t an audience would a t le a s t sometimes accept proba
bility as a supporting proof when deciding whether or not to believe a
speaker.^
Gorgias, Isocrates, and Plato
Between th is period and the time of A risto tle, three men made im
portant contributions to rhetorical thought and practice: Gorgias, who
came to Athens from Sicily and founded a school of rhetoric; Isocrates,
whose teaching attempted to in still youth with a philosophy of using
rhetoric in civic service; and Plato, who was a student of Socrates and
the teacher of Aristotle. Each warrants careful attention.
Gorgias (485-380 B.C.), a Sicilian who came as ambassador to Athens
in 431 B.C. and stayed to open a school of rh eto ric, sought to oreate a
prose style, verbally embellished like poetry, that would convey the
charm of poetry when heard. He believed that certain stylistic features—
notably alliteration, assonance, antithesis, and parallelism—would make 2 his prose persuasive. A typical example of Gorgias' style is the
"Encomium to H e l e n , "3 which begins:
"A fair thing for a city is having good men, for a body is beauty, for a soul wisdom, for a deed virtue . . . (and) for
1 Corax1 s doctrine of general probability is based on the statement that one of two propositions is more likely to be true than the other.
Murphy, op. cit., p. 10.
1loc cit., pp. 10-11.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 a discourse is truth. And the opposite of this is foul. For a man and a woman and a discourse and a deed and a city it is necessary to honor the deed worth}' o f praise with praise . . . and for the unworthy, to attach blame. For it is equal error and ignorance to praise the blameworthy and to blame the praise worthy.* Most of the effects in this passage depend on various kinds of par
allelism. Elsewhere in this piece, however, Gorgias makes strong use of
antithesis—for example, where Helen is contrasted to her abductor:
"But if by violence she was defeated and unlawfully she was treated, and to her justice was meted, clearly her violator was importunate, while she, translated and violated, was unfortunate. Therefore, the barbarian who legally, verbal ly, actually attempted the barbarous attempt, should meet with verbal accusation, legal reprobation, and actual con demnation. For Helen, who was violated and from her father land separated, and from her friends segregated, should Justly meet with commiseration rather than defamation. For he was the victor and she the victim. It is just, therefore, to sympathize with the latter and to anathematize the former*"
Gorgias' conscious attempt to use sound for manipulating his hearers' reactions, which often resulted in the tortuous twisting of his language,
nevertheless marks a new point in the developing Greek ability to theo
rize about discourse. The implication is that sound patterns are persua
sive . 2 Gorgias was oriticized by many of his more conservative contempo
raries not only for his unusually ornate language, but also for claiming
that his school could make a man virtuous as well as eloquent. One of
his most important critics was his student Isocrates (436-338 B.C.).
Isocrates i s renowned as the founder of a school devoted to teaching
"•ibid. o loc. cit., p. 12.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 what ho called "philosophy" for the practical education of statesmen.
He declared that three things were essential for a great orators natural
ability, practice or experience, and education. This is the earliest and
best-balanced evaluation of the interrelations of the three requirements
for proficiency in an art.
In an effort to create a prose style that would be artistic yet
avoid excesses like those of Gorgias, Isocrates popularized the "periodic"
sentence, in which suspense in maintained through several members until
the meaning of the sentence is completed at the point of climax. An
example of one type of periodic sentence, which withholds the verb until
the end, can be found in this passage from his political treatise
Panegyrlcus (4.5-48) s2 "Philosophy, moreover, which has helped to discover and estab lish all these institutions, which has educated us for public life, and made us gentle toward each other, which has dis tinguished between the misfortunes that are due to ignorance and those which spring from necessity and taught us to guard against the former and to bear the latter nobly—philo sophy, I say, was given to the world by our city."
The pupose of this periodic style is to match the sound-pattero expect
ancy with the logical expectancy in the sense of the sentence. This
stylistic blending of sense and sound became popular with orators in
both Greece and Rome,3 and the periodic style, as we shall see, persisted
until the advent of the plain style in the Renaissance and Baroque.
■1 Clark, Donald Lemon, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education. New York: Columbia U niversity Press, 1957, 7.
2Murphy, op. c i t . , p . 14*
3 ib id .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the history of rhetoric, Isocrates 1 concepts of culture and
education are even more important than his popularization of the periodic
style. In two treatises which reject the ideas of sophists such as
Gorgias and Protagoras, Isocrates calls for a Hellenic culture based
upon rationality. He felt that the objective of such a culture should
be practical action rather than intellectuality for its own sake. His
educational program had enormous Influence upon Roman rh e to ric a l schools, <| which in turn affected European and American education.
Gorgias also found an adversary in Plato (c. 428-c. 348 B.C.), though
for different reasons, when he was made the protagonist of the Socratio
dialogue, the Gorgias. In this dialogue Flato launched an attack on
rhetoric and rhetoricians. Plato did not like rhetoric (any more than
he did poetry), did not teach i t in his academy, and ruled i t out o f h is
utopian republic. But then Plato disapproved of almost everything in
human life as he saw it about him in Athens: he disapproved of Athenian
democracy, poetry, art, education, and religion as well as of Athenian
rhetoric, all fundamentally on the same grounds . 2
The grounds are inherent in Platonic metaphysics, which postulate
as the only truth, the only reality, an idea or form in the mind of God.
All else is appearance. The appearances are more or less imperfect
imitations of true reality laid up in heaven. TM .3 gives Plato one
reason for expelling all imitative artists from his utopian republic. ^
^ ib id .
2ib id .
^Clark, op. cit., pp. 26-27.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7
The philosopher, or at least the Platonic philosopher, deals with
reality and truth, whereas the rhetorician deals with appearances and
opinion, and hence to Plato rhetoric is a sham and a snare* The Platonic
philosopher's instrument for the discovery of truth is dialectic, the
argument between two people, the Socratic method illu s tra te d in P la to 's
dialogues. Dialectic proceeds by reason and reveals truth; it is con-
cerned with truth, not opinion* Based on the use of antithesis, this
dialectic method is one of Plato's greatest contributions*
Another important contribution, insofar as rhetoric is concerned,
is the outline of a noble rhetoric which aims at improving the souls
of citizens, net at flattery, and deals with knowledge and truth, not
with opinion and appearances. This outline appeared in the Phaedrus.
a later dialogue than the Gorgias. Plato, however, offers little prac
tical advice to speakers; his primary interest lies in defining the
nature of rhetoric. It remained for his famous pupil Aristotle to make 2 a more comprehensive statement on the subject.
Despite his enthusiasm for the dialectic approach to knowledge and
truth, Plato was not insensitive to art. True, he valued art chiefly
for its moral effect on the conduct of citizens in the city-state, but
he also valued it for its own sake. His aesthetic theory, culled from
several dialogues, holds that all the arts are "imitative," but the
objects which they represent are not the deceptive phenomena of sense
but e sse n tia l tru th s apprehended by the mind and dimly descried in
1 ib id .
Murphy, op. cit., p. 18.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 1 phenomena. As fyfe sta te s: "The process by which the artist apprehends such truths is not the method, slow and sure, of dialectic. It is the ecstasy of inspiration. • . . His power is a spiritual mag netism. . . . The poet in turn inspires Ms interpreter, and through the interpreter the magnetic current passes to the audience, who dangle at the loose end of the chain. This fascination—a conjuring of the soul—is the object of Art; and the test of its excellence is its power of affecting with its peculiar pleasure the souls of those whose native qualities and education make them sensitive to its magic."
Note the reference to the affectiv e power o f im itation, one of the focal
points of art in the Renaissance.
Plato's influence on Aristotle, Cicero, ar.d Quintilian cannot be
ignored. His noble rhetoric had its noblest fruit in the tradition of
C hristian preaching, which was based upon i t and upon Cicero, and it
received its greatest impetus from St. Augustine's treatise on preaching, 2 De doctrlna Christiana.
A ristotle
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) did not agree with Plato that true rhetoric
had to be an instrument of righteousness and that all other rhetoric was
ignoble. Instead, he tried to understand the nature, aims, and uses of
rhetoric in the world of phenomena in which we live. The first great
classifier and systematizer of human knowledge, he approached rhetoric as he approached ethics, logic, biology, or physics—in a scientific spirit.3
^A ristotle, Poetics. Translated by W. Hamilton Fyfe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927, xi. 2 Clark, op. cit., p. 40.
%oc. cit., p. 41.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9
He was, moreover, thoroughly familiar with the philosophy of Plato.
Aristotle came to Athens about 368 B.C. at the age of seventeen and for
the next twenty years was closely associated with Plato's Academy until
Plato's death about 348 B.C. In part his rhetoric is derived from
Plato's views as stated in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus. but in much 1 greater part- is a reaction away from Plato. • o In the Rhetorica Aristotle characteristically places in the opening
chapters his theoretical discussion of the nature, aims, and uses of
rhetorics
"Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or lesB, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired hab it. Both ways being possible, the sub ject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is pos sible to inquire the reason why some speakers sucoeed through practice and others spontaneously; and evry one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art."
A fter condemning current tre a tis e s on rhetoric fo r devoting them
selves exclusively to appeals to the emotions and neglecting persuasion
through an effort to use logical argument, he continues:-'
"It is clear, then, that rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned with the modes of persuasion. Persua sion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been
1Murphy, op. cit., pp. 19-20,
^Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle. Translated tinder the editor ship of W,D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 194-6, Vol. XI: Rhetorlca. 1354a . hoc. cit., I355a»
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. demonstrated. . . . The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficiently natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive a t the tru th . Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at prob abilities." This is a conception of "truth" far different from Plato’s ideal
forms laid up in heaven, in which Aristotle did not believe. He did
believe in scientifically demonstrated truths, about which there is no
debate, and in such contingent and approximate truths as give us the best guide to action at any given moment and about which we do debate.
A risto tle 1 then summarizes the fourfold function of rhetoric:
"first and foremost, to make truth prevail by presenting it effectively
in the conditions of actual communication; second, to advance inquiry
by such methods as are open to men generally; third, to cultivate the
habit of seeing both sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies;
and finally, to defend oneself and one's cause."
Chapter 11^ begins with the definition of rhetoric, implied and
sketched in Chapter I: "Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of ob
serving in any given case the available means of persuasion." Then
Aristotle^ makes the following division of the intrinsic means of per
suasion: ( 1) those inherent in the character or moral potentiality of
the speaker; (2) those inherent in his actual moving of the audience;
and ( 3 ) those inherent in the form and the phrase of the speech itself.
1 Baldwin, Charles Sears, Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic. New York: Macmillan, 192A, 9.
2A risto tle , Works, op. c i t ., 1355b.
^loc. c i t . , 1356a .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11
Cf these nodes of persuasion, Aristotle considered the most important
to be the third, the proof of a truth or an apparent truth by persuasive
arguments. These arguments, he concludes,^ must be drawn for the most
part not from absolutes but from what is usually true, that is from
probabilities—or as he says in the Tonics (I.i.), “from opinions which
are generally accepted."
Many more conclusions have been scientifically demonstrated since
the days of Aristotle and can therefore be used as premises for further
conclusions. However, in the realm of human a ffa irs i t i s as tru e as
ever that we discuss and deliberate and argue for the most part only
those questions which may be answered in at least two ways. We must
choose one of the ways to follow in action. We cannot, however, "prove"
our choice in the sense of "scientifically demonstrate"; we can "prove"
only in the sense of pointing out the conclusion which has the strongest
support from probabilities. Such a conclusion Aristotle calls "approx
imately true." Approximate truth is a very human kind of truth, far
from the "real" truth that only Socrates and Plato could p e r c e iv e .^
The body of Aristotle's Rhetorics fulfills the promise of the first
three chapters and follows the division given above. Book I deals with
the speaker himself as the prime means of persuasion. Book II, pro
ceeding to the second item of the division, deals with the audience,
with knowledge of human nature, especially of typical habits of mind.
It deals with the interaction of moral forces in speaker and audience,
1 Clark, op. cit., p. 47.
2loc. cit., pp. 47-48.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and also with the direct arousal of emotion. The speech itself, the
final utterance, which is the subject of Book III, has thus been ap
proached as the art of adjusting the subject matter of a given case
through the Intelligence and emotion of the speaker to the intelligence
and emotion of the audience. This is the only book of specific tech- 1 nique.
Aristotle the philosopher demonstrated that communication with an
audience i s e sse n tia lly the end and aim of a ll rh eto ric, both spoken
and written. However, he does not te ll us how to be effective communi^s.-
tors. Aristotle the philosopher lectured on rhetoric and wrote the most
important philosophical treatise on rhetoric. He taught rhetoric, but 2 he did not succeed in training public speakers.
In one sense, however, Aristotle's influence on later rhetorics
v&s overwhelming. The authority of his great name helped perpetuate a
number of doctrines, including the three types of discourses, the topics,
and the four parts of the speech, even though they were products of
speaking situations peculiar to fifth-century B.C. Greece and no longer
useful. Some of these doctrines persisted in rhetorical handbooks for
^Baldwin, op. cit., pp. 11-12. Murphy states, however, that although this scheme is accepted by many writers, it is not only a gross over simplification, it is positively wrong. Book I, for example, actually contains all the value system of the auditor, and Book II covers the treatment of the ethos of the speaker as well as the details of the forms of argument in the speech. He gives the following outline as more accu rate: I. Introduction (I 1. 3 )} II. Material Premises (I4—Hq9)5 H I. Forms o f Argument (1120-26^» k^Kuage fo r Presenting Proofs—Style ( I II^ ^ )> and V. Arrangement of Proofs (III-i ^ q). See his synopsis of A ristotle's Rhetorica in A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric* op. cit., pp. 22-70.
^Clark, op. cit., p. 50.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 13
i the next two-thousand years. Of these doctrines, that of the topics Is most relevant to this
study. Generally, a formal definition of the term begins with Aristotle's
statement that a tonos is a place (apparently a kind of locale in the
imagination) where one goes to seek arguments to be used in proving 2 oases, in persuading and audience, or in teaching* The topos was the
seat of the argument or, when transferred to the memory, as Cooper^ ex
pands the meaning, it was something like a pigeonhole in the mind where
one went to seek material for the oration. In his Rhetorica. Aristotle
divided topics according to genus and species or according to "common"
and "specific" kinds. The common topics, in which were found the univer
sal forms of all arguments, were used by all men and by all sciences.
Although scholars have enumerated as many as three hundred and sixty
commonplaces in A ris to tle 's Topics.^ i t appears th a t in some sense,
s tr ic tly speaking, A ristotle^ subsumes a ll commonplaces under four
headings: possible and impossible, greater and less, past fact and future
fact, magnification and minimization. These commonplaces were the proper subjects of both dialectical and
rhetorical syllogisms. The specific topics were, in effect, subdivisions
1 Murphy, op* c it* , pp» 70 -j71*
^Aristotle, Works, op. cit*, Vol. I: Toplca. 1*9*103®.
•^Aristotle, JJae Rhetoric of Aristotle. Translated with supplementary examples hy Lane Cooper. New York: D. Appleton, 1932, xiv, 155*
^Ong, Walter J . , Ramus: Method, and the Decay o£ Dialogue. Cam bridge: Harvard University Press, 1958, 122,
^Aristotle, Works, op. cit., Vol. XI: Rhetorica, i.22.1392a.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 of the common ones; they were peculiar to specific subjects, such as
physics, politics, or ethics, and could not be applied to any other sub
je c t. 1 Subsequent definitions of the commonplaces all stemmed from
Aristotle's concept of the "common" topics and the "specific" topics,
and however much they varied, these definitions generally retained the
essentials found in Aristotle. In the overall tradition, however, the 2 commonplaces were to become f a r more important than the special.
Several of Aristotle's other doctrines have been in the mainstream
of the rhetorical tradition for centuries. Foremost is the rigid separa
tion of evidence from argument implied by the distinction between artistic
and inartistic proofs. Another influential doctrine is the concept that
the speaker's ethos is itself a kind of proof and that a good speaker
will build up his credibility by arguing certain ways. And some of
A ristotle's observations on various types of style have only very recently
lost some of their validity. 3
Three unique Aristotelian points of view, on the other hand, had
little effect on the rhetorical tradition until relatively modem times.
The first of these is the analysis of rhetorical argument in terms of
formal logic. Secondly, although many rhetoricians after Aristotle were
moralistic, none laid out the value system behind the arguments they
recommended as he did. And finally, later rhetorics have all ignored
1loc. cit., i.2.1358®* ^Lechner, Sister Joan Marie, O.S.U., Renaissance Concepts of the Commonplaces. New York: Pageant Press, 1962, 2.
^Murphy, op. cit., pp. 71-72.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 A ristotle's treatment of the pathos, an important insight to psychological
proofs. 1 However, Cooper^ summarizes the influence of A risto tle when he
states that "in effect, the Rhetoric of not only Cicero and Quintilian,
but of the Middle Ages, of the Renaissance, and of modem times, is, in
its best elements, essentially Aristotelian."
Rhetoric Between A risto tle and Cicero
In the two centuries between the death of A risto tle in 322 B.C. and
the appearance of the first major Roman treatises about 90 B.C., the
most important developments in classical rhetoric took place in codifica
tion and schematization. This was the primary activity of the great
library complex at Alexandria in Egypt, which was founded during the
reign of Ptolemy Soter about 295 B.C. The Alexandrian scholars were
credited in the field of oratory with establishing a "canon" or standard
lis t of ten Greek orators whom they regarded as most important. As far
as we know, however, no major rh eto rica l work emerged from th e ir labors,
but their interest in digesting, analyzing, and editing the work of
others gives us a good illustration of the intellectual tone of the
period immediately following A ristotle.3
The only surviving rhetorical text of any significance shows this
same tendency. The so-called Rhetorics ad Alexandrian (named a fte r i t s
introductory dedication to Alexander the Great) is a dry, mechanical
1ib id . 5 Aristotle, Rhetoric, op. cit., p. xvii.
^Murphy, op. c i t . , pp. 77-78.
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se t of short chapters w ritten sometime during the fourth century B.C.
It Is clearly different in spirit from the Rhetorics of Aristotle. The
hook had very little influence in ancient times, but it was translated
into Latin three separate times during the HMdle Ages because it was 1 thought that Aristotle had written it.
Other Greek rhetoricians are known to have been active during these
two centuries, but their works have not survived, and we know of them
only from references in the works of writers such as Cicero and Q uintilian.
Theophrastus (c. 370-c. 285 B.C.), for instance, may have established the
concept of three levels of style found in Cicero, and may have also set
an important precedent by making a separate study of ’’figures of speech”
and "figures of thought," two concepts that play a very important part
in the theory of style in later RCwuti rhetoric . 2
The single most important Greek rhetorician of this period is
Hermagoras of Temnos (la te second century B.C.), whose lo s t work on
rhetoric has been reconstructed by modem scholars. Sis doctrine of
stasis, or key issue, heavily influenced Roman ideas of invention, in
cluding those of Cicero and Quintilian. Hermagoras completes the link 3 between Greek rhetorical theory and Roman rhetorical practice.
The first complete Latin textbook on rhetoric is the anonymous
Rhetorics ad Herennium. w ritten about 90 B.C. I t covers invention,
arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, the five standard parts or
^loc. cit., pp. 78-80.
2ib id .
^Loc. c i t . , pp. 80-82.
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“canons* of rhetoric as It was taught by the Romans. It contains the
oldest surviving treatment of the art of memory, a section on style
featuring a detailed study of sixty-four figures of speech and thought,
and a complex section on delivery that analyzes gesture, voice, and
facial expression. The treatment is reminiscent of Hermagoras, and is
very close to the ideas of Cicero in his De inventions.
The author is unknown, yet the tone is so close to that of Cicero
th a t fo r 1500 years i t was regarded as a book actually w ritten by him.
It had virtually no influence in the ancient world, but at the beginning
of the Christian intellectual movement in the fourth century, Saint
Jerome end others recommended it, and it remained popular for more than
a thousand years. During the Renaissance, Book IV again influenced A rhetoricians interested in the tropes and figures. In short, the
Rhetorics 3 d Herennium i s a highly technical document re fle c tin g the
crystallized state of Hellenistic rhetorical doctrine at the beginning 3 of the first century before Christ.
Cicero
The next major advance in the art of rhetoric appeared in the work
of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.). Rhetoric in the philosophy of
Aristotle is essentially the art of giving effectiveness to truth.
1ib id . 2 For a list of the forty-five figures of speech and the nineteen figures of thought contained in Book IV of the Rhetorics gd Herennium. see Murphy, loc. c i t . , pp. 88-89.
%oc. cit., p. 83.
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Accepting this theory, Cicero nevertheless feels rather the tradition
of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness to the speaker. The
constructive review of a great orator exploring his art is thus oomple- 1 mentary to the analysis of the philosopher. He remains after two thou
sand years the typical orator writing on oratory. The most eminent
orator of Roman civilization, he wrote more than any other orator has
ever written on rhetoric; historically, he has been more than any other
an id e a l and model. Conscious of h is own range and the narrowness and
low esteem that seem from the beginning to have cursed teachers and
especially manuals of rhetoric, he is anxious in his greater works to
appear not as a rhetorician but as a philosopher. Though no treatment
could be more different from A ristotle's, he is at pains to urge the
Academic theory th a t rh eto ric is a branch o f philosophy, and to avoid
the technical terms of the art while keeping its traditional categories.*
In the final analysis, however, Cicero is not philosophically
creativ e. He c la rifie s the thoughts of others and brings them to bear.
His habit and skill are not at all scientific. His achievement is of
style to the extent that it is an achievement of presentation. What
he says of rhetoric, for instance, others have said before him; he says
it better, more clearly, more vividly. He says it so much better, indeed,
that his phrase has a certain finality, It points out not only his
extraordinary command of diction, but also his constant awareness of its
effect on his audience. At times Cicero is diffuse; however, his very
1 Baldwin, op. cit., p. 5.
^loc. cit., pp. 37-38.
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diffuseness springs from Ms constant sense of how people think and feel
while they hear and read* In. all this he is typically the orator.^
Refining and sophisticating rhetorical theory occupied a great por
tion of Cicero's literary life. His first rhetorical work appeared
around 86 B.C., when he was twenty years old; th is was a manual on the
art of rhetoric, Dg Inventione. It is little more than a summary of
then current practice, and is pompous, did actic, and rig id in i t s pre
sentation; Cicero apologized for it in later years. Nevertheless,
rhetoricians seized upon this manual as their guide and their criterion 2 for excellence. Thirty years of legal and political experience intervene between
the publication of the De, Inventione and the appearance of Cicero's
f i r s t mature work, Be Oratore. in 55 B.C. In th is work, the methods of
rhetorical training that were fully detailed in the De Inventione are 3 relegated to a lesser position. The emphasis of De Oratore is the
melding of philosopher and practioner as in the best days of the ancient
tradition. The training of the public speaker, this tradition consistently
repeats, must focus the whole training of the man.^ Cicero’s ideal
orator is a man widely read in philosophy, but he is more than this.
"He w ill need a knowledge of c iv il law and history. He must have a sense of humor, and psychological in sig h t to enable him to anger or to touch the judge. He must be able
1loc. cit., p. 39.
Murphy, op. c i t ., p. 97.
^Loc. c i t ., p. 106.
^Baldwin, op. cit., p. 40.
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to pass from the particular to the general, to see In each individual case the application of universal law. He oust adapt his speeohes to occasions and persons: h is openings oust be tactful, his statement of facts clear, his proof cogent, his rebuttals trenchant, and his perorations vehe m ent."' Cicero wanted rhetoric, as it was properly understood, to be a
system of general culture. This was not an original goal. Isocrates
had stated that the study of rhetoric was valuable for refined states
manship several centuries enrlier, and Cicero frequently acknowledges
his debt to the Greek theorists . 2
Nine years after the publication of Db Oratore. Cicero wrote the
Brutus and the Orator (46 B.C.). When combined with De Oratore these
books contain the best of Cicero's rhetorical theory. The two later
works both deal with the distinction between "Attic" and "Asiatic"
oratory. Although the evidence is incomplete, it seems that a sizable group
of Roman philosophers, orators, and writers had settled on the charac
teristic of so-called "Attic simplicity" as the critical ideal in their
system of discourse. They paid little attention to ornate or rhythmic
language and attempted to emulate the "pure" vocabulary and grammar
used by the fifth-century Greeks. Caesar followed this Attic style as
seen in his Commentaries, which are straightforward and devoid of
stylistic embellishment.^ This is a trend which re-establishes itself
^Murphy, op. c i t . , p. 106 citin g P. MacKendrick, "C icero's Ideal Orator," Classical Journal. XLIII (1947-1948), 345. See also Dg Oratore. I . 68, 128, 165-184, 256; III. 54; Orator. 113, 126.
2ib id .
h.0 0, c i t . , p. 126.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. during the Renaissance.
Opposed to the A ttics was the group known as the A siatics. The
foremoat practitioner of this style was Hortensius ( 115-50 B.C.)#
Cicero's great forensic rival. The aim of the Asiatic style of speak
ing was to impress and secure the attention of an audience either by
fluency, by florid and copious diction and imagery, or by epigrammatic
conciseness. In a literary debate in the middle 40'a B.C., Cicero was not only charged with speaking in the Asiatic manner, but also accused
of non-Atticism. The need to answer these charges placed Cicero in his
traditional role as defender of rhetorical theory and resulted in the
Brutus, a subjective history of Roman oratory in dialogue form. To vin
dicate his position as an Attic orator, Cicero marshals an account of
over 200 Roman orators, evaluating them on various points of style.^
Cicero continued his polemic with the Atticists by releasing the
Orator shortly after the Brutus. Written in the form of a letter, the o treatise presents Cicero's view of the perfect orator. The dominant
theme of the book is the general notion that two kinds of orators exist:
those who speak in plain terms for useful, instructive purposes, and
those who rely upon their exuberance, verbosity# and rhythmic cadences
to sway an audience. Though considering himself an Attic orator#
Cicero prefers the latter. By arguing for the interrelationships be
tween the three functions of the orator—to teach, to please, and to
move—and the three levels of style—plain, middle, and grand—Cicero
^loc. c i t . , pp. 126—127. 2 See Baldwin, op. cit, pp. 56- 61, for a digest of Orator.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2
offers an approach to oratory that is unified and coherent* He claims
that style is the unifying principle of oral discourse; moreover, style
adds an aesthetic dimension to oratory.^
Three other works round out Cicero's legacy to rhetoric* In the
same year as Brutus and Orator* he produced the Dg Optimo Genere
Oratorum to praise the forensic speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines*
He subsequently published the Partitiones Oratoriae (45 B.C.), a cate
chetical discussion of the speaker's resources, the components of a
speech, and the nature of both causes and audiences* The Toolca (44
B.C.), an application of Aristotelian dialectic to Roman oratory, was 2 Cicero's last contribution to rhetorical theory. The importance of
the Topica rests in the attempted fusion of philosophical and rhetorical
invention. Throughout his career Cicero repeatedly tried to show the
relationship between the two disciplines, and in the Topica he is
suggesting that philosophy and rhetoric have a common inventional
methodology.^
What were Cicero's contributions to the theory of oral discourse?
He believed that the orator must have a firm foundation of general
knowledge* C icero's id eal was the phllosopher-statesm an-learned orator
who used rhetoric to mold public opinion. He joined the throe functions
of the orator to the throe levels of style, and he revitalized the best
of the Greek theoreticians and practitioners of oratory. Rhetoric at
1Murpby, op, c i t ., p. 136.
^loc. cit*, p. 92.
3loc. cit*, p* 146.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 3 the hand of Cicero was elevated to an end in itself.^
Quintilian and the Second Sophistic
The murder of Cicero in 43 B.C. marked both the end of the Republic
and the end of a philosophic approach to rhetoric. With the death of
the Republic, Roman oratory loses its "material.H The causes, direct
or contributory, of the decay of Roman oratory in the first century A.D. 2 according to Caplan included the loss of political liberty, degraded
morality, and the complexity of the Empire. It was ironic that the
decay of Roman oratory in the first century occurred at the time that
rhetoric became the foremost discipline in Roman education.3
The general tone of the Empire profoundly affected Roman education.
Litterator. grammaticua. and rhetor were established as three distinct
levels of education. Within rhetoric, style became the predominant
emphasis as a result of a too remote concern for reality in the Empire.
A new type of composition, declamatlo. was also introduced, which dealt
with rhetoric on an invented subject or purely imaginary theme.^ The
Controverslae of Seneca the Elder (c. 54 B.C.-A.D. 39) isolates best
that particular application of ancient traditions of style which in his
generation was infecting the old rhetoric, and through which the teach
ing of both Greek and Roman schools was to be dwarfed and perverted.'*
1loc. cit., pp. 149-150.
^loc. c i t . , p. 151. 3ib id .
*loc. cit., p. 152.
^Baldwin, op. cit., p. 62.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. No one author presented the state of the art at this time in a
more encyclopedic manner than Marcus Fabius Quintiliaxms (c. A.D. 35-
95). In his single ertant work, Institutio oratoria. written about
A.D. 33, he blends the theoretical and educational aspects of' rhetoric.
In the preface, Quintilian clearly states his purpose: "My aim, then,
is the education of the perfect orator. The first essential for such
a one is th a t he should be a good man, and consequently we demand of
him not merely the possession of exceptional gifts of speech, but of
all the excellences of character as well." This emphasis on character
is a reaction against the depravity of the moral climate with which
Quintilian had to contend, and thus, the Institutio oratoria possesses
a dimension th a t i s seldom encountered in a tre a tis e on o rato rica l
instruction.^ The comprehensive program of educating the virtuous man announced
by Quintilian is carried throughout. No other work is so exhaustive.
Including all the ancient topics, he proceeds upon the classical theory
of systematic guidance, but makes the important contribution of pedago
gical order, a progressive plan.** Starting with the maxim of Cato the
Censor that the orator is "the good man who is skilled in speaking,"
Quintilian takes his future orator at birth and shows how this goodness
of character and skill in speaking may be best produced. The scheme
1Q uintilianus, Marcus Fabius, In s titu tio O ratoria. Translated by John Selby Watson. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903, Vol. I , Book i , 9. ^Murphy, op. c it., pp. 156-157.
•^Baldwin, op, c it., pp. 34-85.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. followed Is the standard division into three periods, supervised by the
l it t e r a to r . the grammatical s. and the rhetor respectively. Under the
first the child receives elementary instruction, under the second he is
grounded in literary criticism and scholarship as well as what we call
grammar, with special emphasis being la id on poetxy. The th ird stage
studied much the same authors, though more attention was given to prose,
but with a direct view to the practice of oratoryJ
Quintilian postulates the widest culture in the parts of the work
which deal with general education! there i s no form of knowledge from
which something may not be extracted for his purpose, and he is fully
aware of the Importance of method in education. Yet he develops all
the technicalities of rhetoric with a fulness to which th ere is no 2 parallel in ancient literature. However, his main line is not an
analysis of the subject but the development of the student, from boy
hood through adolescence to manhood. A ristotle's rhetorical philosophy
begins with the speaker as the cause; Quintilian's rhetorical pedagogy
ends with the speaker as the r e s u i t . ^ The scope so brilliantly vindi
cated by Cicero is taken by Quintilian as a matter of course.
Realistically speaking, however, Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria
was already an anachronism when it was written. The bloody civil war
that had killed Cicero in the previous century was eventually won by
a soldier, Mark Antony, who set himself up as virtual dictator of Rome.
1Encyclopaedia Brltannica. 1950 sd., s-ve "Quintilian."
2ib id .
^Baldwin, op. cit,, pp. 84-85.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26
His successor Ootavian ruled as Emperor Augustus for forty-four years;
in the next eighty-four years a series of twelve Emperors held power* The Roman Senate never recovered its power, even though the Emperors
continued to maintain the outward forms of the Republic* .Dictatorial
Emperors reigned for another three centuries, until Rome fell in 410. Freedom of speech was a major casualty of this long exercise of pure 1 tyrannical power. Historians of rhetoric often use the term "Second Sophistic" to
describe this period, a period of oratorical excess in which subject
matter became less important than safer externals of style and delivery.
Because of the oppressive practices of the Emperors, rhetoric became
introverted, which the historian Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55- 120), writing
toward the end of the first century, criticized in a caustic Dialogue
Concerning Oratory. Only in a free society, Tacitus declares, can the
dash of arguments provide great oratory. It is not surprising that
the Second Sophistic therefore produced no new rhetorical theories.
Quintilian is dearly not a part of this movement. As mignt be expected in a period dominated by questions of style,
grammar and grammarians attained increasing importance. The first
widely accepted textbook on grammar v&s written in the fourth century
by Aelius Danatus (fl. fourth century), whose two simple manuals
remained standard works for almost twelve hundred years. In these
books he differentiates between grammatical figures, such as parts of
** **Murphy, op. c i t . , pp. 178-179.
2ib id .
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speech, and figures of speech and tropes. After Donatus, however, it
is no longer possible to distinguish precisely between "grammatical
figures" and "rhetorical figures," and by the end of the fourth century
as many as 200 separate tropes and figures can be distinguished in
various books of rhetoric and grammar . 1 These are the same figures
and tropes that were to be incorporated in future musical theory and
p ra c tic e .
This, then, was the state of rhetoric at the end of the ancient
world. Rhetoric, which had flourished in democratic Greece and repub
lican Rome, dried up and in part decayed under the benevolent dictator
ship of the best of Emperors as well as under- the despotism of the
bloodiest of tyrants. Oratory had become increasingly concerned with
matters of style rather than matters of substance, and this was to be
the thrust of rhetorical theory in the Middle Ages.
Augustine
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, rhetoric was engrossed with
the details of style promoted by the teachers of the Second Sophisticj
as a system of education, however, sophistic was hollow. This is an
issue raised by Plato, and he i s ju s tifie d by histo ry . Sophistic
could use its many devices only to exhibit skill, not to guide either
the state or the individual. The only force that could revive rhetoric 2 with the lore older than this spent tradition was a new motive.
1loc. cit., pp. 180- 181.
2Baldwin, Charles Sears, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. New York: Macmillan, 1928, 50-51.
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With this elaborate pedagogical tradition a clean break Is made
by St. Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus—354-430). His De doctrine
Christiana, completed in 426, is the clearest bridge to the Middle
Ages; it has historical significance all out of proportion to its size.
It begins rhetoric anew. It not only ignores sophistic, it goes back
over centuries of the lore of personal triumph to the ancient idea of
moving men to tr u th J
Some Christians, who detested the paganism of Roman society, were
urging the Church to discard all the trappings of pagan Rome, including
rhetorical education, arguing for a totally new culture devised eape*
d a l l y fo r the Christian community. Af Usr the f i r s t ecumenical council
of the Church held a t Nicaea in 325, the Church was facing organizational
problems that involved making major decisions about education. The
controversy raged throughout the century.
Augustine's De doctrina Christiana makes a strong argument that
the Church should use the rhetoric of Cicero to convey its message
through preaching and education. He shows that the Bible, which the
pagan sophists laughed at as an uncouth collection of tales, uses all
three of the styles outlined by Cicero. He urges the study of good
models as means of learning how to speak and write .2
His influence prevailed, and the Christian Church adopted the
Ciceronian rhetoric as a guide to preachers. St. Augustine is sometimes
called the "last classical man and the first medieval man." With respect
^ ib id .
2Murphy, op. c i t . , p. 183.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 29 to rhetoric this is certainly true, and it is possible to see in him an agent of communication from one age to another. For instance, his rhetoric is Cicero’s, but his concept of communicative "sign” is based on Christian theology rather than on a study of ancient authors.^ Fur thermore, as we shall see, Augustine acted as a bridge in the transmis sion of ancient musical traditions to the Middle Ages. At precisely the same time that Augustine was revamping rhetoric for use in the Church, reactionaries and conformists were tenaciously
holding on to sophistic in the last days of Roman Gaul. It was the 2 last territory of the ancient world. Two of these holdovers were
Decimus Magnus Ausonius (c. 310-395)* a teacher of grammar and rhetoric
at Bordeaux, and Gaius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (c. 430-487 or 488), Roman prefect and Christian bishop. They followed faithfully all the
sophistic traditions and were constant to its ideal of expert impres
siveness. Augustine had been the pioneer of the Christian future of
rhetoric; Ausonius and Sidonius were complacent reactionaries of its
decadent Roman past.^
Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts
After Donatus it became increasingly difficult to differentiate
between rhetoric and grammar. The relationship of rhetoric to grammar
on the one hand and to logic on the other must be considered in d eter-
^loc. cit., pp. 183-184.
2Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric, op. cit., p. 75.
3loc. cit., pp. 76-87.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 mining its fiuctlon at any point of its history. Thus vs come to the
consideration of what came to be known as the Trivium. comprised of
rhetorica. grammatics, and dialectics, the first three of the seven
liberal arts. The division of studies into seven liberal arts came to the Kiddle
Ages largely through Martianus Capella (fl. fifth century). His
Marriage of Philology and Mercury, in which he introduces the concept,
was widely current for centuries. The allegory implied by the title
is carried out in ornate verse and prose through two books, followed
by a sober, concise, pedestrian compend of grammar, logic, rhetoric,
geometry, arithm etic, astronomy* and harmony. This tra d itio n was
carried forward by the monk Cassiodorus (c. 490-c. 535) in his survey
Institutiones in the sixth century, and by the Spanish bishop Isidore
of S eville (c. 570-636) in the seventh through his Btymoloeiae. Through
out this period, the Latin texts of Don&tus and Priscian were the au
th o rita tiv e grammarsj A risto tle was the standard is logic; and Q uintilian 1 and Cicero were used in rhetoric. The mention of Aristotle’s works on logic brings us to the individual
whose influence had the greatest impact on the Middle Ages: Ancius Manlius
Torquatus Boethius (c. 480-524). His translations and interpretations
of Aristotle affected century after century of medieval thought. It was
only with the coming of the Renaissance that his influence waned. We
shall have more to say about this great transmitter of Greek thought
when we discuss his influence on music.
1loc. d t., pp. 87-98.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 The Shift From Rhetorica to Dialectics
As every student of medieval h isto ry knows, the Roman Empire under
went a number of changes as the result of the invasions In the sixth,
seventh, and eighth centuries. Men born to Celtic, English, and Frankish
speech learned the latin culture and transmitted It to the whole of
Europe. In those circumstances the writers of the eighth, ninth, and
tenth centuries were primarily teachers, and their chief field was
grammatics. The language of learning was no longer for any of them
common speech; it had to be acquired even by Italians and Gauls as a
second language* In compensation, it was universal, halted by no
frontiers.^ GrwmmaticA became, therefore, more important than ever. I t opened
not only learning in general, not only literature, but also especially
the interpretation of the liturgy, the offices, the creeds, and the
Scriptures. Charlemagne's mission was to secure a clergy that should
first be educated and then educating, a mission carried out partly
through the cathedrals, but mainly through the monasteries.'5'
Donatus and Priscian kept their authority. They were successively
adapted to changing needs in manuals by the great teachers of the
period: Bede, Boniface, Paulus, Diaconus, Alcuin, Loup, Remi, Gerbert,
Abbo, and AElfric. That grammaMaa thus engaged the best teachers of
the time is evidence of its cardinal importance. 3
1loc. cit., pp. 127-128.
2ib id .
^loc. cit., p. 130 .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission The study of figures, both those usually included in gwnmm-hi
and those assigned to rhetorica. was applied to the interpretation of 1 holy writ. Augustine had pointed out that the Scriptures not only
use figures, but explicitly mention allegory and parable.
Logic followed the Boethlan tradition handed down by Isidore*
Alcuin, though his manual is meager, repeats in his tract on the Trinity
St* Augustine's view of the importance of this study for the defence
of the faith. However, dialectic's turn to dominate the Trivium had
not yet arrived.^ Rhetoric, the last part of the Trivium. had lost much of its
ancient content in this period of invasion and reorganisation. Even
when it kept in touch with Roman method, it was likely to lean on the
declamatio handed down by the sophistic schools of Gaul. For all these
reasons the ancient lore most sought and used was elocutlo. the counsels
of style. The function of rhetoric is usually described in this period
by some such verb as omare . 3 At the fa ll of Rome the Trivium was dominated by rhetorica: in the
eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, the Carolingian period, by grammatica:
now, in the high Middle Ages, by dialectlca. The shift of emphasis to
logic probably began in the eleventh century. In the next century the
theory of logic was fortified by the translation into Latin of parts
1 Saint Augustine, D& dcctrina Christiana. Book III, p. xxLx, For a modem translation see Robertson, D.W., Saint Augustine on Christian Doctrine. New Yorks Library of Liberal Arts, 1958.
2Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric, op. c it., pp. 141-142.
3 ib id .
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 33 of A ris to tle 's Organon which had not been available; the practice of
logic became more urgent through the historic debates as to universals.
By offering the most active training in composition) logic confirmed
the restriction of rhetoric to style. John of Salisbury (c. 1115-1180),
for example, after giving full treatment to grammatlca. focuses his
great book on d ia le c tic s. Rhetorica he merely mentions; i t claims none
of his thought.^ Nor does any other leader of the high Middle Ages
treat rhetoric as active in the intellectual processes of composing®
Rhetoric has no educational vitality, and, except in some applications
in preaching, is therefore at a standstill.
In the thirteenth century, four major surveys of the Trivium
appeared: the Anticlaudianus of Alain de Lille (c. 1128-1202), St.
Bonaventure's (1221-1274.) de Reductions Artium ad Theologiam. the
Speculum Doctrlnale of Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190-c. 1264), and the
Tr^sor of Brunetto Latini (12107-1294?). What rhetoric appears to lack
most in these surveys is distinct function. Writers as different as
John of Salisbury and Brunetto Latini, one of the links to Renaissance
humanism, seem to think of i t as polishing, decorating, and especially
dilating what has already been expressed. It comes in after the real
job is done; it has lost its ancient function of composing. The ancient
lore of inventio kept rhetoric in contact with subject matter and with
^Salisbury’s Metaloglcus perpetuates Quintilian more than any other medieval work. However, because of the conditions in which i t was written, he transfers most of Quintilian's rhetorical theory to grammatics or ^Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric, op. c it., pp. 151-172.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. % actual presentation. This had so much less scope in feudal society
that the lore easily lapsed or was perverted. The only large field
for its exercise was preaching. Education, therefore, naturally threw
i t s weight on grammatics fo r boys and on d ia le c tic s fo r men. Between
the two rhetoric was crowded in. Whether it would still have vindicated
itself.if it had been the rhetoric of Aristotle, or more often the
rhetoric of Quintilian, can only be conjectured. Actually it was the
rhetoric of Cicero's youthful De inventione and the technical ad
Herennlumf inculcated by the sophistic of Sidonius. That may explain
why there was no medieval rhetorician who really advanced the study.
It remained for the early humanists of the Renaissance to recover the
Greek language and through it the Greek tradition.
^loc. cit., pp. 172-182.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE RHETORIC
The Beginnings of Modem Rhetorical Theory
By the middle of the fifteenth century, rhetorical theory had stag nated j however, the contributions of medieval culture to our subject are far more important than the preceding analysis may have revealed. They lie, more deeply than in particular technical discoveries, in the new sp irit pervading the whole approach to the problems of expression. A decisive step forward was taken by shifting gradually and subtly away from the prevailing hedonistic and sensualistic orientation of ancient thought and sensibility toward a basic intellectualism which, however we might view it from a scientific vantage point, was destined to leave
•1 a lasting mark on modern taste.
At the same time, the Renaissance 1 b a more convenient period with which to begin a discussion of the modern concept of rhetoric, for i t witnessed the la st years of medieval civilization in Western Europe and the first years of modem civilization. Thus if we take our stand in the early Renaissance and examine the rhetorical theory which prevailed at that time, we are face to face with arrangements that counted almost two thousand years of history behind them and had changed only in detail during that double millennium. Simultaneously, as we look around in the Renaissance, we begin to see that things are changing in rhetoric as in politics, theology, and science, and that those changes have a
^ Scaglione, Aldo, The Classical Theory of Composition. Chapel H ill The University of North Carolina Press, 1972, 122.
35
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission familiar look, as if they would not be out of place among the similar arrangements of our twentieth-century world. In other words, the Renaissance is the one point in the history of Western Europe where the theories of ancient Greece and Rome and those of modern Europe and
America are ranged side by side, zhe older ones still alive but losing ground, the younger ones s t i l l immature but growing. 1 Howell dis 2 cusses five changes in ancient rhetorical theory which began to appear in the Renaissance, and they provide a convenient background against which we are better able to study both rhetoric and music during this crucial period. Perhaps the most significant change is that logic dissolved its alliance with the Trivium of the communication arts and aligned itself instead with the theory of scientific investigation.^ Descartes^ in his famous Piscours de la methods indicated the need for a logic of inquiry to replace the older logic of communication, a summons which proved to be prophetic. In an academic sense, this means that logic affiliated itself with the department of philosophy and ceased to have any primary connection with the department of rhetoric. Another significant change which began during the Renaissance is th at rhetoric, because of the loss of the traditional role of logic
^Howell, Wilbur Samuel, Poetics. Rhetoric, and logic. Ithaca, New York; Cornell University Press, 1975, 141* loc. c it., pp. 144-161. 3 loc. c it., p. 144* ^Descartes, Rene, A Discourse on Method and Selected Writings. Translated by John Veitch. New York; E.P. Dutton, 1951, 52-68.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in communication, attempted to expand her interests so as to become the theory of learned discourse while remaining the theory of popular dis course.^ In the ancient scheme as interpreted by the Renaissance, logic had jurisdiction over the theory of learned discourse. Indeed, logicians and rhetoricians of the Renaissance had a favorite image to describe the relationship of rhetoric and logic, and that image associated rhe- o toric with the open hand, logic with the closed fist. Cicero'*’ described the relationship in these words from the Orator: "The man of perfect eloquence should, then, in my opinion possess not only the faculty of fluent and copious speech which is his proper province, but should also acquire that neighboring borderland science of logic; although a speech is one thing and a debate another, and disputing is not the same as speaking, and yet both are concerned with discourse— debate and dispute are the function of the logicians; the orator's function is to speak ornately. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, used to give an object lesson of the between the two arts; clenching his fist he said logic was like that; relaxing and extending his hand, he said elo quence was like the open palm.1? Debate and disputation, as used in this passage, stand for all the types of philosophical or scholastic discourses that one finds in the world of learning; eloquence stands for the open, popular speech to p o litical meetings, juries, and gatherings at public ceremonies and celebrations. As logic in the ancient scheme taught the young expert to communicate with his peers while rhetoric taught him to communicate with the populace, so in the modern scheme has rhetoric attempted to teach both functions, inasmuch as logic is no longer available for the
1Howell, op. c it., p. 147. 2ib id ., citing Orator. 113, trans. H.M. Hubbell, p. 389. See also Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria. 2. 20. 7.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. purpose it once served.^ A third great change with origins in the Renaissance concerns in vention, that is, the devising of subject matter for a particular speech and, by extension, the providing of content in discourse. Lest this definition sound as if subject matter comes only from the speaker's mind, and not from the external realitie s of his environment, i t should be emphasized that subject matter comes from external realities as seen and interpreted by the speaker and thus is neither on the one hand the result of his imagination nor on the other the mere equivalent of bare facts. Inventional theory conceived in these terms has changed greatly since the Renaissance. In the Renaissance, and for a thousand years before, mental interpretation was emphasized more, a t times considerably more, than external re alitie s. Today the emphasis is almost exactly the re verse, and this reversal began in the Renaissance when inventio was assigned to logic. The same external realities that have become the focus of scientific investigation claim the center of interest in the modern concept of rhetorical invention, while mental interpretation is
accepted as the means o f making those r e a li t ie s humanly important and 2 of deciding how best to present and use them.
S till another change concerns the method of arranging ideas for
public presentation. The change has been one in which complicated
structures have been abandoned and simpler structures adopted. During
1loc. c it., pp. 147-148. ^loc. c it., pp. 150-155.
3ibid.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Renaiss nee two distinct practices were in evidence. One practice, which was applied to learned discourses, required that a speech be or ganized either in an ascending or a descending order of generality. The other practice was applied to popular address, and it consisted of following the theory of the classical oration, with Cicero as the great authority. Later there was a trend to move away from the ceremonial organization advocated by Cicero toward a more simple theory much like Aristotle, where a more natural order, prescribed by that being ordered (ordre naturel). is the rule. In Rhetorica. Aristotle1 said that a speech needed to have only two parts, the statement and the argument, to which on occasion the speaker might wish to add an introduction and an epilogue, but no other divisions} this is much closer to modem practice than are the Roman or medieval rhetoricians. In this change 2 the Renaissance played a large part. The fifth and final change in rhetoric since the Renaissance con cerns the theory of style. In the sixteenth century rhetorical style was largely, sometimes exclusively, taught in terms of tropes and schemes. Tropes were what are now called figures of speech, including such devices as metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, irony, and allegory. Schemes were unusual arrangements of language, such as rhymed verses. The lis t of tropes and schemes was exceedingly long in the Renaissance. The theory behind the usage was that men have one language for ordinary intercourse and another for formal communication, and that the latter
1 Aristotle, Works. Vol. XI, op. c it., 1414a-14Ub. ^Howell, op. c it., p. 157.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. AO differs from the former by employing tropes and schemes throughoutJ The tendency of modern rhetoric Is to recommend the speech of ordi nary life, and it reflects the change that began in the Renaissance as political power and economic influence were transferred from the aristo crat to the commoner. In support of this same trend, the new science found the fashions of aristocratic speech unsuited to the expression of scientific subject matter and unresponsive to the expectations of those seeking intellectual, humanitarian, or commercial profit from the publication of experiments and discoveries. Thus did the scientific, economic, and political forces in the pattern of Western Europe conspire to produce a new theory of rhetorical style quite different from that 2 in vogue in the early Renaissance.
Humanism
The humanist movement is the proper place to begin i f one is to understand the role of classical studies in the Renaissance. The term studia hpmnnlfofrftp was apparently used in the general sense of a liberal or lite ra ry education by Cicero and other Roman authors, and th is use was resumed by the Italian scholars of the fourteenth century. By the first half of the next century, it came to stand for a clearly defined cycle of scholarly disciplines, namely grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy, and the study of each of these subjects was understood to include the reading and interpretation of its standard
^loc. c it., pp. 158-159. 2loc. c it., pp. 159-160.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 •1 ancient writers in Latin, and to a lesser extent, Greek. In the six teenth century, frynani st.a and its vernacular equivalents were terms commonly used for the professor, teacher, or student of the humanities, and this usage was understood until the eighteenth century. Thus Renaissance humanism was not as such a philosophical tendency or system, but rather a cultural and educational program, with an emphasis on what might roughly be described as literature.^ The link between the medieval rhetoricians and the early humanists were the Italian dictatorss. whose primary concern was letter writing. Seigel^ states that they "wrote about the principles of epistolary com position, applied them in specific situations, and made formularies of letters for use on various occasions both by Individuals and by town governments and princes." Closely associated with the ars notaria, the craft of the notary, whose chief tasks revolved around drawing up legal documents and contracts, the dictatores also cultivated public oratory and made exalted claims for their art. Their descriptions of its place among the other learned disciplines sometimes recalled clas sical rhetorical ideals, in particular the ideal of the combination of rhetoric and philosophy.^- An example of this can be found in a descrip tion of Brunetto Latini, perhaps the greatest of the dictatores. by
1K risteller, Paul Oskar, Renaissance Thought: the Classic. Scholastic, and Humanist Strains. New York: Harper and Row, 1961, 9-10. 2ibld. ^Seigel, Jerrold E., Rhetoric and Philosophy ^n Renaissance Humanism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968, 206.
4loc. cit., pp. 206- 210.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Giovanni Villani^ as "a great philosopher and a perfect master in rhe toric, both spoken and written. He expounded the rhetoric of Tully, and wrote the good and useful book called the Tresor . . . and besides that other books of philosophy, and one about the vices and virtues." Despite these types of claims, however, the medieval dictatores were not classical scholars and used no classical models for their composition. I t was the novel contribution of the humanists to add the firm belief that in order to write and speak well it was necessary to study and imitate ancient models. Thus, classical studies in the Renaissance were rarely, if ever, separated from the practical and lit- 2 erary aim of the rhetorician. The f ir s t and most influential of the humanists was Francesco di Petracco, or Petrarch (1304-1374.), and he carried the medieval rhetorical tradition to a new understanding of and sympathy with the classical study of oratory. As Boccaccio, Bruni, and Poggio Bracoiolini^ a ll declared, Petrarch "opened the way for us to show in what manner we could acquire learning." The new directions which Petrarch gave to rhetorical culture in Italy may be seen in large part as responses to several factors: the challenge of scholastic philosophy; the shifting of rhetorical activity from the field of personal transactions to that of the city-state; and the need to present rhetoric as part of high culture as well as practical u tility . To the challenge of scholastic philosophy he responded with
1ibid. 2 K risteller, op. c it., p. 13. ^Seigel, op. c it., p. 215.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission the Ciceronian ideal of the combination of philosophy and rhetoric; to provide for the increasingly public nature of the rhetoricians tasks, he led the way back to the classical rhetorical culture, which had been tightly linked to the life of the city-state; and in order that the cul ture of the rhetoricians might be of value even to men who did not use i t professionally, Petrarch made the exhaltation of eloquence the vehicle for a return to the cultural standards of the ancient world. Petrarch’s study and use of Cicero prepared the way for the humanists who followed him, especially his thought on the problem of the relation ship between rhetoric and philosophy. The problem, simply stated, i s this: eloquence, as formulated by Cicero, should have an active force in men’s lives. However, if rhetoric has this role to play in the moral reform of individuals, then what part is left for philosophy? Petrarch answered th is question in the traditional way: no true eloquence could exist apart from wisdom. At the same time philosophy needed the persua sive power of eloquence; he criticized Aristotle's writings in moral philosophy because they failed to move their readers. 2 And yet, Petrarachr 3 recognized the difficulty in achieving this unity: "Both the diversity of th eir ways of life and the wholly opposed ends for which they have worked make me believe that philosophers have always thought differently from orators. For the latter's efforts are directed toward gaining the applause of the crowd, while the former strive—if their declarations
^loc. c it., pp. 215-222. 2loc. c it., pp. 33-35. %oc. cit., pp. 4&-A7.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. are not false—to know themselves, to return the soul to Itself, and to
despise empty glory.'1 The recurring theme in P etrarch's reasoning of
this prol; - "a is that of consistency. This was the quality which only
the conscientious study of philosophy could bring. In the treatise -1 On His Own Ignorance, he remarked that "philosophers must not be judged
from isolated words but from their uninterrupted coherence and consist
ency. " There were two basic reasons Petrarch found consistency a concept
incompatible with rhetoric. First, a primary principle of rhetorio held
that the orator must fit his speech to his audience, subject and circum
stance. As these changed, so must the orator's message. Secondly, the
very nature of the principle of imitation led to inconsistency. The
imitation of models was one of the basic methods recommended for develop
ment of a good style, and moreover, much writing on ethics by writers
such as Cicero recommended the imitation of exemplars of virtue. Petrarch
realized that those who make imitation the principle of their actions
cannot achieve a constant tenor of l if e . "They must change th e ir goal
every time they find something to admire. There will be no limit to their o changes, because there is no limit to imitation."
Petrarch's solution to this dilemma followed lines traced out by
Cicero. His understanding of "philosophy" embraced not only ab stract
wisdom, but also the concrete doctrines of three ancient philosophical
schools, the Academics, the Stoics, and the Peripatetics, each of in-
1loc. cit., p. 48.
^loc. cit*, p. 50.
with permission of the copyrightowner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. terest to the ideal orator. The Stoics and the Peripatetics were focused upon, as they best met the orator’s needs. The Stoics, to Petrarch, were the guardians of the philosophical virtues of truth and consistency, and the Peripatetics were the philosophers whose teachings were most relevant to the lives of ordinary men; Petrarch combined these two approaches to wisdom. "Just as my reason is often Stoic," he confessed in one of his
•j le tte rs, "so are my feelings always Peripatetic." He excused himself for not following more resolutely the path toward the higher life on the grounds that he was subject to "the necessity of human nature."2 Thus Petrarch's picture of himself was deeply colored by his sense of always striving to reach a moral level which his natural weakness did not allow him to attain. These considerations form the basis of his combination of rhetoric and philosophy, and provided la te r humanists with a view of ancient philosophic culture which opened its riches to men who were fun- 3 damentally rhetoricians. The most famous and influential representative of the humanist cul ture in the generation after Petrarch was Coluccio Salutati (d. 1406). Salutati was also concerned with the problem of the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy, and his treatment followed the main lines set down by Cicero and Petrarch. However, in the last years of his life, he stated the anti-rhetorical position much more completely than Petrarch had, and he openly pointed out implications in i t which Petrarch had
i loc. cit., p. 54. p loc. cit., pp. 53-54. ^loc, c it., pp. 54-61.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. never allowed to come to the surface. In doing so he shoved -how Impor
tant the defense of oratory was for the studla humanitatia . 1 For example,
some philosophers, such as Plato, sought to make eloquence absolutely
dependent upon philosophy. Few professional rhetoricians accepted such
a view, but Salutati took the Platonic attitude more seriously than most,
and raised questions about the value of the independent pursuit of elo- 2 quence, eventually becoming convinced of i t s dependence on wisdom. 3 However, in his view, such affirmations could still be reconciled
with a program of learning which gave first place to rhetoric:
"The best thing is for wisdom and eloquence to join together, so that the second expounds what the first comprehends. In a contest over which was to be preferred, give the palm to wis dom. Never think it is useless, however, to give individual, especial and continued attention to eloquence. For the pur su it of eloquence i s i t s e l f a duty of wisdom. Eloquence is placed under wisdom, and contained in it as in the sum of all things which can be known, so that whoever pursues wisdom necessarily pursues eloquence at the same time. Accordingly as the two can be separated by the intellect, however, elo quence is more rare than wisdom, since rarity is a most cer tain evidence of difficulty in those attainments which are the products of study and industry, and which we obtain through effort. Let it be added that the intention, zeal, and opportunity for speaking well spurs us on in the desire to knowj so that the pursuit of eloquence is a means to the end of seeking wisdom. For nothing can be well said which is not perfectly known. We can know many things, however, which we do not know how to say clearly and with the required ornament or grandeur of speech. Therefore eloquence, with its connection to the pursuit of wisdom, ought especially to be studied. Thus even a t th is point S a lu ta ti was no more w illing than Cicero or
Petrarch had been to accept the full implications of the admitted
^loc. c it., pp. 63-64. 2loc. c it., pp. 79-80.
^loc. c it., pp. 83 - 84 .
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission superiority of philosophy to rhetoric. Once wisdom was admitted to be a higher ideal than eloquence, a call for the combination of the two no longer served to exalt the followers of rhetoric. The humanists of the Quattrocento would be keenly aware of this. The challenge it posed to their place in the intellectual life of their times could be met either by enhancing their own claims to be men of wisdom as well as eloquence, or by rejecting the ideal of an equal combination of rhe toric and philosophy in favor of a frank subordination of philosophy to rhetoric. Leonardo 5n responded in the f irs t way, Lorenzo Valla in the second.1 Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444-) > successor to Salutati as chancellor of Florence, carried on and deepened the tie s between the humanist movement and the increasingly powerful and famous Tuscan city. He pro duced a history of Florence which claims a place in the early develop ment of modern historical writing, and his knowledge of Greek helped turn the humanist movement toward a more thoughtful interest in Hellenism. It was his new versions of Aristotle which set apart his approach to the p problem of the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric. Throughout Bruni's career his attitude toward the pursuit of elo quence remained strongly positive. This was possible f ir s t of a ll be cause he took a position with regard to the ancient philosophic schools which was different from the one Petrarch and Salutati had absorbed from Cicero. Bruni attempted what he called a "conciliation of philo-
^loc. cit., pp. 85-98. ^loc. c it., pp. 99-101.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4& sophers," based upon a basic point of agreement of a ll the schools: the high praise given to virtue. 1 Seigel2 notes that "Bruni's conciliation of philosophers seems wo have had in view two noteworthy consequences. One m s to disarm any pos sible criticism of his own emphasis on Aristotle and his rel ative neglect of the Stoics: since all philosophers agreed in their evaluation of virtue, it was enough to follow one school. The second effect of Bruni's procedure was to elimi nate the necessity felt by Petrarch and Salutati to declare their loyalty much of the time to a notion of philosophy so rigorously committed to the life of wisdom that it could not accept the compromises demanded by ordinary life . Bruni1 s own position was Aristotelian} his efforts to harmonize the teachings of all philosophers had the effect of bringing the other schools closer to the Peripatetic mean. The implica tion of this was clear: philosophy as Bruni envisioned it never led where the orator could not follow.” The major thrust of Bruni's translations of Aristotle was that various kinds of evidence existed to demonstrate Aristotle’s enthusiasm for eloquence, and if Aristotle was the kind of thinker Bruni described him to be, then philosophy which derived from him would not try to lord over rhetoric in the way Salutati had suggested it might. This argument was one way of shielding the rhetorical culture of humanism from possible attacks in the name of philosophy.*^ However, i t was not the only way, and a much more radical path was chosen by Lorenzo Valla. The path which Lorenzo Valla (14-07-1457) followed was much more consistently hostile to philosophy than Bruni's had been. For example, Valla asserted several times that the claim of Aristotle and others that the life of contemplation rendered man similar to God was only an attempt
1 loc. c it., p. 104. ^Icc, cit., p. 106. 3loc. c it., pp. 109-136.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. on the philosophers’ part to glorify their own activity.^ The proper status of philosophy in his view was not one of equality with rhetoric, but of subordination to it. It is this view which probably attracted him to Quintilian, who had declared that moral philosophy was properly p the province of rhetoric. Having thus deserted the earlier humanistic ideal of a union of rhetoric and philosophy in a nominally equal partner ship, Valla found Bruni’s attempt to link Aristotle to the humanist pro gram without real interest.^ Yet even Valla could not disdain the pursuit of wisdom with complete consistency. He, too, was forced to substitute for the philosophy of the philosophers a different, true, philosophy, a task to which he ad dressed himself in a work called the Dialectical Disputations of 14-39. His aim was to show that ’’the major part of Latin logic is false, while
my logic is true; that the orator is the true wise man, insofar as it is given to man to be such, and that he is more than a philosopher, namely a sophos. 11^ The method Valla followed, to assure that dialectic kept its proper place in relation to rhetoric, was to tie the dialec tician firmly to the linguistic standard; of the orator. This standard was the common language of everyday life . The humanists regarded the commitment to common sense and ordinary, non-philo sophical language to be characteristic of rhetorical culture, and Valla wished to lay down
^loc. c it., p. 141. loc. cit., p. 143* 3ibid. ^ioc. c it., p. 161.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 50 usage as a kind of law for philosophy. Tied in this way to the coanon practice of everyday life , i t would never depart from the moral and intellectual world of ordinary men, as he had criticized (and as Cicero A and Petrarch had sometimes praised) the Stoics for doing. Furthermore, Valla made it quite clear that he did not believe that reason, by its e lf, could add to man's knowledge, and therefore he did not think that there was any place in education or in intellectual life for a dialectic independent of oratory.^ This redefinition of philosophy and logic had the primary effect of making philosophy a part of rhetoric. Valla admitted the separation and hostility between ancient philosophers and the art of oratory, thereby declaring all traditional philosophy to be outside the pale of true learning. Although many of his conclusions would have been rejected by Salutati or Bruni, i t was Valla who went furthest along the intellectual path opened up by Petrarch,^ Thus we have seen how the humanist conception of the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy did not remain static, and the general direction is hard to mistake: the humanists came to conceive of the combination of wisdom and eloquence in way which granted increasingly less independence to philosophy. Their ambivalent attitude toward philosophy underscores the fact that despite the enthusiasm of Petrarch and his followers for ancient culture, certain segments of the ancient world were either misunderstood or ignored by them, especially those
H oc. c it ., pp. 162- 164. 2 loc. cit., p. 167.
H oc. c it ., pp. 168-169.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 51 aspects of ancient philosophical culture which were genuinely hostile
•I to rhetoric. Rather than condemning the early humanists for their loyalty to rhetoric, however, we should consider the large degree to which Bruni and Valla were correct in seeing the orator as the central figure of classical culture. For, as Seigel points out, "until the modern technological age, which effectively began with the industrial revolution and romanticism, Western culture in its intellectual and academic manifestations can be meaningfully described as rhetorical culture." Near the beginning of his English literature £n £Jie Sixteenth Century excluding Drama. C.S. Lewis^ states that "in rhetoric, more than in anything else, the continuity of the old European tradition was em bodied," adding that rhetoric was "older than the Church, older than Roman Law, older than all Latin literature," and that it "penetrates far into the eighteenth century." Their identification with the Giceronian orator made the humanists blind to some important features of classical thought, but at the same time i t allowed them to see much that no one had glimpsed for centuries. Their contribution was momentous: through their activity the European mind was gradually awakened to a new historical consciousness of the classical world and its values.^
Hoc. c it., pp. 257-258. ^Ong, Walter J ., Rhetoric. Romance, and Technology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971, 1. 3ibid. ^Seigel, op. cit., pp. 259-262.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Neoplatonism
Historically speaking, the first contribution of the humanists, through their enthusiasm for antiquity, was to give impetus to the Neoplatonic revival of the later fifteenth century. Petrarch was not well aquainted with Plato's works or philosophy, but he was the first Western scholar to own a Greek manuscript of Plato, and in his attack on Aristotle's authority among the philosophers of his time he used at least Plato's name J This program was then carried out by his humanist successors. However, Renaissance Platonism, in spite of its close links with classical humanism, cannot be understood, as a mere part or offshoot of the humanistic movement. It possesses independent signifi cance as a philosophical, not merely scholarly or literary , movement; it is connected with both the Augustinian and Aristotelian traditions of medieval philosophy, and due to the work of three major thinkers of the late fifteenth century, it provided the foundation for the intel- 2 lectuai history of the sixteenth. The earliest and greatest of the three, Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus, 1401-1 464), was indebted to German and Dutch mysticism as well as Italian humanism. He stresses the certainty and exemplary status of pure mathematical knowledge, to mention only one facet of his complex thought that shows his link with the Platonic tradition.^ The most
^Kristeller, op. cit., pp. 57-58, 2ibid.
^loc. cit., pp. 58-59.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. central and influential representative of Renaissance Platonism is Marsilio Ficino (Marsilius Ficinus, 1433-1499)» in whom the medieval philosophical and religious heritage and the teachings of Greek Platonism are brought together in a novel synthesis. As a translator, he gave to the West the first complete version of Plato and Plotinus in Latin; in his Theologica Platonics de immortalitate animae of 1482 he gave to his contemporaries an authoritative summary of Platonist philosophy, in which the immortality of the soul is emphasized in the Thomist tradition. His Platonic Academy with its courses and discussions provided for sev eral decades an institutional center whose influence was spread all over A Europe through his letters and writings. Closely associated with the Florentine Academy was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)* In his thought, which did not reach full maturity, the attempt was made to 2 achieve a synthesis of Aristotelian!sm and Platonism. The complexity of Renaissance Platonism makes its place in sixteenth- century thought difficult to describe. It was not identified with the literary or philosophical teaching traditions, unlike humanism and Aristotelianism, and its institutional connections were uncertain. Francesco Patrizi' s (1529-1597) attempt to introduce courses on Platonic philosophy at the universities of Ferrara and Rome were of short dura tion, and a similar course at Pisa was taught by Aristotelian scholars. Nonetheless, the writings of the Neoplatonists were widely read and dif fused, and some of its material found its way into the vernacular lang-
^ ibid. ^loc. cit., pp. 59-60.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 54 uages, especially French and Italian .1 Their influence extended far beyond the circle of those who wanted to be known as followers of that tradition. Natural philosophers such as Telesio, in his treatment of the immortal soul, and Bruno, in his theory of love and in his meta- O physics, were strongly indebted to the Platonic tradition** For humanists unfriendly to the Aristotelian position, Plato and his school held much attraction, as witnessed in the works of Erasmus
and Ramus, two seminal figures in the development of this o u t l i n e . ^ And finally, Plato was praised by musicians such as Francesco Gafurio and Vincenzo Galileo who had a literary education and were familiar with the fame and authority of his school. I t is worth noting that Ficino was an enthusiastic amateur musician and wrote several shorter treatises on music theory; it is conceivable that the passages on musi cal proportions in Plato's Timaeus. together with Ficino's extensive commentary on them, made a strong impression on the musical theorists of the time.^ Renaissance Platonism was, therefore, an important phenomenon both for its own period and for the subsequent centuries to 1800. In most cases Platonist elements are combined with doctrines of a different origin and character, and professed Platonists did not express the thought of Plato in its purity, as modem scholars understand it. Yet, even with
-1 loc. c it., pp. 60-61. 2loc. c it., pp. 61-62. %bid. ^loc. c it., p ..65.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 these qualifications, it vas a powerful intellectual force for centuries to come, and it had a profound influence on literary and rhetorical his tory.1
Baroque Trends with Origins in the Renaissance
From this background rhetoric developed in two main currents: the imitative, Ciceronian stream, together with its connotations of periodi city and grand style, which culminated in the f ir s t quarter of the Cinque- centoj and the anti-Ciceronian, with its connotations of loose composi tion and plain style. The anti-Ciceronian trend in the Renaissance and Baroque was a mixture of rationalist and scholastic thought, and it mani fested itself in ways which will be the subject of the remainder of this chapter. The study of syntax (or constructio) in the Renaissance is a con venient place from which to view the early stages of anti-Ciceronianism. The humanists moved syntax from the formal, scientific, or historically- oriented method it had attained in the Middle Ages back to the empirical level. They fe ll back to deriving forms from functions, and one cause of this was the progressive introduction of vernacular in the schools. The habit of translating from Italian to Latin made them take the "elements related to functions" (the meaning of the Italian forms) and 2 attempt to fit these into the Latin forms. The humanists sensed the danger in th is practice of "constructio"
1loc. cit., p. 69. 2Scaglione, op. c it., p. 126.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. taken as " const ruing.'1 Yet the practice of parsing or construing con tinued on its way unperturbed; often condemned by name, constructio was accepted under the name or ordo. thus returning to the ancient terminology of ordo dictionum which medieval theorists had replaced with constructio* since ancient constructio was the rough equivalent of our "syntax." Indeed, construing was never given up, and was destined to be revived
*J later on by the eighteenth-century rationalists, above all by Du Marsais. The relating of Italian to Latin made the humanists intensely aware of the discrepancy between current and ancient usage. This was as a result of the "return to antiquity" which lay at the root of humanism. Their main concern, therefore, was for correcting such distortions, as they saw them, and for this reason they were constantly comparing ver nacular forms and expressions with the "correct," classical Latin equiv- alents. Thus a speculative interest in syntax (as developed in the Middle Ages) vanished, and was replaced by the empirical observation of facts, historically established, which was a different type of achieve- % ment. The most authoritative voice first heard in this domain within the humanist camp was that of the Flemish Jan van Pauteren (Despautere, Despauterius), whose Syntax!s was apparently first published in 1510. An interesting feature of this work is that rhetorical concerns which had traditionally been a part of grammatical treatises were now incor-
^loc. c it., pp. 126-127. ^loc. cit., p. 128. 3ibld.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. •1 porated into the province the author called syntax. This work high lights the trend of the Northern humanists to introduce consideration of composition and word order into syntax, even while the borderline between grammar and rhetoric (linguistics and stylistics) remained vague.2 Another key work in this vein was the De emendata structure Latini sermonis lib rl VI (1524) of Thomas Idnacer (c. 1460-1524), who made the successful distinction between syntax!s regular!s and figurata.3 Despauterius and Idnacer transmitted two notions destined to exert tremendous influence on grammar and rhetoric: the assimilation of rhe torical areas into grammar under the heading of syntaxl s figurata. and the theory of ellipsis as principal explanation of all phenomena not immediately reducible to application of the basic, normal patterns. This was to become a rhetorical principle of the first order. Further more, the explanation of syntactic patterns through ellipsis was made
to f o llo w aconsistent line of reason ing which lay outside living usage. Reason had the upper hand over both usage and authority.^
The key text for this development is Julius Gaesar Scaliger's
(1484-1558) fig, caussis linguae latinae lib ri XIII of 1540.- Scaliger
can truly be said to stand at the crossroads of rhetorical history,
for in his fierce battles with Erasmus over the latter1s criticism of
Cicero, he placed himself firmly in the line of Petrarch, Poggio, and
1loc. cit., pp. 129-130. 2ibid. %oc. c it., pp. 130—13»- 4-loc. c it., p. 133*
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pietro Bembo, the early sixteenth-century Ciceronian, as opposed to the more eclectic Valla, Politian, and Pico della MirandolaJ And yet he also guided the early intellectual life of Muret, who we shall see be came the first in a line of anti-Ciceronian Atticistsj and was an ad mirer of Ronsard and the Pleiade, who were fighting for the right to compose poetry in French (and were an important influence on musical A thought). He departed from his master, Aristotle, in proclaiming as absurd imitation as the goal of poetry, in keeping with his identifica tion of the word with the object.^ Scaliger, in a truly revolutionary spirit, showed the way to a new current which runs through the Spaniard Francisco Sanchez de la Brozas (Sanctius, 1523-160i) directly to the authors of Port-Royal.^ Although, in a lite ra l sense, Scaliger omitted anything related to syntax, Sanctius focused upon th is la tte r province as the most necessary in his work likewise subtitled "On the causes of the Latin tongue" (Minerva, sive ge causis Latinae linguae,. 1587). In Minerva, the theory of ellipsis takes up one third of the whole work (Book IV); in this rational 1 stically grounded approach, Sanctius followed Scaliger. But Scaliger selected Latin only as a fulcrum for his general theory of grammar, the basic structure of all languages (thus becoming the fore-
1Hall, Vernon, J r ., "life of Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484-1558)." Transactions of Jjjge American Philosophical Society. New Series, XL part 2, 1950, 94-114. ^loc. c it., pp. 132, 140. ?loc. cit., p. 152. ^Scaglione, op. c it., pp. 131-1.32.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 runner of Axnauld and the eighteenth-century general grammarians), while
Sanctius sought to prove the inner necessity of logical coherence of 1 Latin syntax as a closed system. The numerous commentators and followers
of Sanctius1 Minerva, of Lancelot’s Port-Royal Grammars, of Amauld and
Nicole’s Port-Royal Logic, constitute, together with these capital texts,
a tig h tly -k n it current of thought which consistently developed by ex- 2 plicit mutual references down to the middle of the eighteenth century. When combined with the Italian Atticists, they form the central anti- Ciceronian rhetorical current which found its Elimination in the Enlighten ment.
Renaissance Rhetorical Treatises
Against this background, the contributions of the various Renaissance rhetoricians can be studied. The first pioneering work was Gasparino Barzizza1s De compositions (1420), one of those early humanist rhetorics which had banned constructio.^ Based on Quintilian and Martianus Capella, it contains norms on word order, ligatures, and rhythm in elocution. Barzizza judges word order on the basis of an achieved impression of naturalness rather than on an objective grammatical pattern, and lim its himself to discussions of stylistic sensibilities in word arrangements, without tackling basic problems of the subject-verb relationship.^
1,Ioc. c it ., pp. 132-133* 2ibid. %oc. cit., p. 126.
^loc. cit., pp. 134-135.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 The fira t new and original work of the Renaissance is George of
4 Trebizond* s (1395-1484.) Rhetoric. A paraphrase of Hermogenes written around 14-37 and f irs t published around 14-70, i t offers one of the most elaborate and systematic studies of compositio. which for Trebizond is one of the three elements of style (together with subject matter and diction), and which he regards as the most important aspect of elocution. He separates the periodic from the loose construction, and attempts to distinguish the former into ambitus and circuitus (this la s t having more "force1*—v is). Trebizond points out that this forcefulness is achieved by ending the circuitus variety of period with a short colon, whereas a long one contributes dignitaa to the ambitus. This is one of the earliest attempts to define the rhythmic value of final-phrase lengths in terms of the whole.^ Many of the treatises written on rhetoric during this period were commentaries on ancient and medieval rhetorical texts, and showed an unprecedented ability to characterize general styles, schools, and style
periods. Erasmus^ (? 1466- 1536), in his Ciceronlanus of 1528, for exam ple, could discern the peculiar inodes of Patristic writing, and he makes the claim that styles must change in time because they must tally with the subject matters. Thus the humanistic argument of a union of res efe verba is brought to final fruition by denying the static nature of models.^
^ First edition Venice, 14-70.
^Scaglione, op. cit., pp. 135-136. •^loc. c it., p. 139. ^loc. c it., pp. 138-139.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 It is interesting to note the correlation of Erasrmls, union of ££& e j verha in rhetoric with Scaliger’s union in poetry. Although b itterly opposed to one another in means, they achieved the same end by accepting the need for changing models and by rejecting imitation of old styles. In this way the word became the image of the object: there was no dif ference between the thing in poetry or rhetoric and the thing in nature. Another example of the humanistic commentaries on ancient texts dealing with composition is Pier V ettori's Commentary on Demetrius (1562). He followed the original text step by step and expanded it in a very lucid manner into an original commentary four to five times longer than i the original. All in a ll, humanist rhetoricians were fond of reminding themselves that more precious teachings could issue from the great orators than from the theorists of oratory, not excluding Cicero himself. Neverthe less, the age produced a plethora of rhetorical manuals. They lean Chiefly upon Quintilian, Cicero, and Hermogenes, Although on the whole they continued to lay emphasis on style, two kinds can be recognized: those that deal mainly with invention and disposition, and those which turn almost exclusively to elocution. This latter current, which be came most methodically associated with the Ramists, is the one which prevailed in the course of the sixteenth century, a far-reaching shift from the total rhetoric of Yalla and Politian toward a reduction of rhe- 2 toric to elocutio and actio with Agricola, Vives, Ramus, and Patrizi.
^loc. cit,, p. 140,
2ibid.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 Ramism
This trend is exemplified by the early case of Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540), who in Book IV of his De oausis corruptarum artlum (1531) misconstrued the genuine role of classical inventio (originally the discovery of places, or topics, the material content of arguments), ruling it out of rhetoric altogether. This procedure, together with the important precedent of Rudolph Agricola (1444-1485), who in Spain turned logic away from Aristotle to Cicero (and in this sense, via Cicero) to the Stoic tradition, may be regarded as the source of Ramus’ "reform” of rhetoric; it most certainly ratified the stand of those Renaissance 1 logicians who assigned inventio and dispositio to logic* In a similar manner the remaining major subdivision, elocutio* ab sorbed all the attention of Renaissance rhetoricians (with a resulting formalism which had already characterized the Second Sophistic), while it had become the lot of dialectics to monopolize the places and their organization (again, inventio and dispositio. respectively). Thus the
f ir s t book of Vives1 De ratlone dicendl (1532), one of the most impor tant books on rhetoric written in this period, dealt mainly with sen tences (compositio) and the period. Francesco P atrizi, in the ten dia logues of his Della Rhetorlca (1552), ventured to go so far as to deny any scientific substance to ancient rhetoric. Eventually Ramus "saved" rhetoric by reserving for it no other province than elocutio (Institutionss dialectlcae. 1543? Soholae £n artes liberales. 1555), even though he
1loc. c it., pp. 140-141. See also Ong, op. cit*. p. 93*
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "rhetoric!zed" logic by incorporating into it not only all the topics, but the theory of order (dispositio)* exposition, and "method" as wellJ Dialectic and rhetoric had been intertwined at least from the time
of the Greek Sophists, 30 when Ramus decreed that they must be disengaged from one another he engaged some of the most powerful and obscure forces in itellectual history. The divorce of the two disciplines affects rhe to ric the most, since i t was now to consist of elocution (and pronuncia tion) alone, as these had never threatened to overlap with dialectic, Ramist rhetoric, as well as Ramist dialectic, was the result of the work of Omer Talon (Audomarus Taleus, c, 1510-1562) in conjunction with that of Peter Ramus (Pierre de la Ramee, 1515-1572), and took some years to develop fully. Talon, except for a brief period of teaching at the College of Beauvais at Paris, was Ramus* man, joining Ramus and Bartholomew Alexandre in teaching at the l i t t l e College de l'Ave Maria. In his 154.3 Training j£ Dialectic. Ramus2 had announced that Talon was to provide a complementary treatment of rhetoric. The treatment appeared in 154-5 as Omer Talon* s Training in Oratory.^ Its tit le matches that of Ramus* 1543 work, and the author was identified, like Ramus, as "of the Vermandois" (Veromanduus). In Talon's^ preface to the revised edition is found a specific declaration of the way in which Ramus and Talon worked
1Scaglione, op. c it., p. 141 • 20ng, op. c it., p. 270.
3ibid. ^Howell, Wilbur Samuel, Logic and Rhetoric £n England. 1500-1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956, 148-149.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Peter Ramus cleaned up the theory of invention, arrangement, and memory, and returned these subjects to logic, where they properly belong. Then, assisted indeed by his lectures and opinions, I recalled rhetoric to style and delivery (since these are the only parts proper to it); and I explained it by genus and species, (which method was previously allowed to me); and I illustrated i t with examples drawn both from oratory and poetry. Thus these present precepts are almost wholly in words drawn from those authors; but as this f ir s t and rude outline has unfolded, the precepts have been tested by the judgement of both of us, and disposed in order, and ornamented and treated by kind.” Thus it is quite likely that Ramus had some hand in Talon's Oratory. and even more likely that he had a hand in the Rhetoric which emerged from it in 1548. It is quite certain that the rewriting of the text in the 1567 and 1569 editions after Talon's death is Ramus' own. The Talon Rhetoric is the expressly designed complement of Ramus' Dialectic. a complement in any and all of its stages as perfect as not only Talon, but Ramus himself, knew how to make i t . Despite Ramus' coming attacks on Quintilian, the rhetoric of the Ramus and Talon team echoes Quintilian from the start. The Training in
Oratory2 opens with an almost verbatim quotation from the Iberian rhe toricians "Eloquentia vis est bene dicendi," which may be rendered, "Eloquence is the power of expressing oneself well." Paralleling the Training in Dialectic. Talon divides his rhetoric into three parts— nature, art, and exercise. In the later works of 1548, 1567, and 1569, the attempt to include a treatment of nature and practice was abandoned, and the two-part treatment of the art was presented alone.^
10ng, op, c it., pp. 270-271.
2ibid. 3loe. cit., pp. 271-272.
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65
Talon 1 defines that second step in eloquence in a cautious adapta tion of Quintilian, and states that rhetoric proper is Mthe artificial teaching of good expression in any matter.1' By 1548, this caution would
be deemed superfluous, and Ramus 2 would state that rhetoric was simply "the doctrine of expressing oneself well" (doctrlna bene dicendi), which, with scientia substituted for doctrina. is exactly Quintilian's defini tion. 3 The two parts of the teaching or art of rhetoric are said to correspond to the parts of natural eloquence, which turn on the "praise" or assets of single words, and the "praise" or assets of conjoined words. These two parts are formed by imposing upon rhetoric a division parallel ling the unit-cluster partition of dialectic: invention (single arguments) and judgement (conjoined arguments). This partition was a complete failure in rhetoric. In the 1548 Rhetoric and the editions derived from it, the
parts were redesignated a 3 elocutio which was conceived largely as "orna ment" or "garnishing," and oronuntatio or delivery. Elocutio was divided into tropes and figures; oronuntatio into voice and gesture.^" This new division of rhetoric proved a kind of failure, too. From Talon through Dudley Fenner (c. 1558-1587) and his successors, the in sufficiency of the new second part became all too apparent. Delivery is given rather short shrift by ancient rhetoricians, but they did not con sider i t one complete part of a two-part art. Talon, who did so consider
^ibid., citing Talon, Institutiones oratoriae. p. 8 , "Rhetorica est . . . artificiosa de qualibet re bene dicendi doctrina."
2ibid. 3ibid. 4loc, c it., pp. 272-275*
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66
i t , forgot even to mention i t in 1545, and in 154® the second part amounted to almost nothing. In later revisions, it amounted to even less. In Dudley Fenner’s adaptation of Talon, Aj£ o£ Rhetorick in Tfcg, Artes 1 ibid. 2ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. on the subject in postelassical times by its place in the lower reaches of the curriculum, and evinces no real understanding of the semantic importance of metaphorical or of any sim ilar processes. The ideas on style which Ramus and Talon expressed are representa tive of Ramism in general and of the central tradition of post-Renaissance Latin. They are neither rabidly Ciceronian nor rabidly anti-Ciceronian. The "pure and elegant" authors-—Terence, Antonius, Crassus, Hortensius, Sulpicius, Cicero, Caesar, Virgil, and Ovid—are to be imitated, and Cato, Ennius, Plautus, and other rudes e t in cu lti to be avoided. Plato, Cicero, and Quintilian are the basic authorities on the subject of rhe toric; the latter two are, of course, among Talon's and Ramus' real sources. Plato is cited for prestige and for what Ramus considered his o nuisance value in annoying the A ristotelians. There is little evidence from Ramus' contemporaries that anything very new and distinctive resulted from Ramus' or Talon's prescriptions regarding actual style, in writing or in oral delivery. The plain style emerges as an ideal and actuality among th e ir followers, however, par ticularly the Puritan and other "enthusiastic1* or "methodist" preachers whose formal education was controlled by a Ramist dialectic and rhetoric 3 evolved to the lim it of its original implications. This did not occur ^loc. c it., pp. 273-274. 2ibid. On the occasion of taking his degree in 1536, Ramus actually took as his thesis "Everything that Aristotle taught is false," and was interdicted in 1544- on the ground of undermining the foundations of philosophy and religion. See Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1950 ed,, s.v. "Ramus." ^Loc. c i t., p. 283 . with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 until ''.he beginning of the seventeenth century, and was not prescribed by Ramist rhetoric, although i t was made inevitable by the whole mental i setting which constituted Ramism. According to Howell , 2 Ramus 1 most important contribution is what he has to say about method, and it exercised such influence that a cen tury-long debate on the subject ensued, one masterpiece of which was Descartes' Discours de la Methods. "Method," says Ramus,3 ‘Ms natural or prudential." This twofold view of method follows upon his definition of method as that in which ideas in any learned treatise or dispute are to be arranged in the order of their conspicuousness, the most conspicuous things being given f ir s t place, and less conspicuous things being given subordinate places. While both the natural and the prudential, methods fall under his definition, and are governed by it, the natural method attempts to arrange ideas in the descending order of generality, whereas the prudential method attempts to arrange them, in terms most convenient for the auditor, and "most amenable for inducing and leading him whither we purpose."^ The natural method, or as Ramus later implies, the method of arrang ing a scientific discourse, proceeds upon the assumption that some state ments are naturally more evident than others. After tracing the origins of this method back to the works of Hippocrates, Plato, and Aristotle, ^loc. c it., pp. 284-285. 2Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in England, op. c it., pp. 160-164. •"loc. c it., p. 160. 4-loc. c it., pp. 160-163. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ramus"' observes: "And in a word this artistic method appears as a sort of long chain of gold, such as Homer imagined, in which the links are these degrees thus depending one from another, and a ll joined so justly together, that nothing could be removed from it, without breaking the order and continuity of the whole.u Ramus did not limit the natural method to learned discourse; he expressly stated that it is used also in poetry and oratory. However, this did not mean that there was no place for the prudential method. The wisdom of this method has particularly appealed to orators in their attempts to gain initial attention of their hearers. He then sums up this phase of his discussion:^ "And in brief all the tropes and figures of style, all the graces of action, which make up the whole of rhetoric, true and distinct from logic, serve no other purpose than to lead this vexatious and mulish auditor, who is postulated to us by this [i.e ., the prudential] method; and have been studied on no other account than that of the failings and perversities of this very one, as Aristotle truly teaches in the third of the Rhetoric." The deepest meaning of Ramist rhetoric is to be found, however, in the general framework of man’s changing attitudes toward communication, with which rhetoric is so inextricably involved. It can be argued that the most distinguishing feature of Western civilization is its develop ment of a scientifically managed dialectic and of related formal logics, together with the rhetorics which are the counterparts of such logics. Like a ll rhetoric, Ramist rhetoric is concerned with expression, with communication, with speaking, with not only a subject matter but also an auditor. But it is a rhetoric which has renounced any possibility ^loc. c i t ., pp. 160-161. 2loc. c i t . , pp. 163-164.. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 of invention within this speaker-auditor framework; it protests in prin ciple if not in actuality, that invention is restricted to a dialectical world where there is no voice but only a kind of vision. By its very structure, Ramist rhetoric asserts to all who are able to sense its impli cations that there is no way to discovery or to understanding through voice, and ultimately seems to deny that the processes of person-to-person communication play any necessary role in intellectual life. In Ramist rhetoric, dialogue and conversation themselves become by implication mere nuisances. When Ramus first laid hold of the topics, these were associ ated with real dialogue or discussion, if only because they existed in both dialectic and rhetoric conjointly and thus kept dialectic in touch with the field of communication and "thought-in-a-vocal setting 11 which had been in historical actuality the matrix of logic itself. But in the severing of dialectic from rhetoric, without any profound understanding of the interrelationships of these two disciplines, the topics, relegated by Ramus to dialectic exclusively, were in principle denied any oral or aural connections at a ll. To a Ramist, Dryden's admission that he was often helped to an idea by a rhyme was an admission of weakness if not of outright intellectual perversion. Furthermore, Ramist rhetoric is a rhetoric which has not only no invention but also no judgement or arrangement of its own. The field of activity covered by these terms has likewise been dissociated from voice by being committed to Ramist dialectic or logic. In the process, judgement—which necessarily bespeaks utterance, an assent or a dissent, ^Ong, op. c it., pp. 289-290. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a saving of yes or no—simply disappears, and with it all rational interest in the psychological activities such a term covers. Arrangement secures exclusive rights as the only other phenomenon besides invention which occurs in intellectual activity, and as the sole principle governing the 1 organization of speech. This development is likewise typical for the most part of the entire logical and rhetorical development of the West out of which Ramism emerges, so that Howell sees Ramism not as something incidental but as a pivotal phenomenon. Howell^ makes i t clear that a distinctive mark of the post-Ramist dialectic or logic is that it is a logic of individual inquiry into issues thought of as existing outside a framework of discourse or dialectic rather than a logic of discourse. Latin Syntax As ve have seen, the combined approaches of Despauterius, Idnacer, Scaliger, and Sanctius had firmly established a new distinction of vital import for the following period, namely that of syntax ! 3 naturalis. common to all languages, and svntaxi 3 fjgurata or arbitraria. the par ticular property of individual languages. Both could be discovered and analyzed rationally, thanks especially to the phenomenon of ellipsis in the area of the syntax!s arbitraria.^ Syntax appeared once again divided into regularls. irregularis, and 1ibid. 2Howell, Logic and Rhetoric jn England, op. c i t ., p. 361. 3loc, cit», pp. 350- 360. ^Scaglione, op. cit., p. 159. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. furthermore, omata in the anonymous Grammatica latina published in 1606* It bore, in other respects, a Ramist inqprlnt. Caspar Schoppe (Scioppius, 1576 - 1649), whose G,fanim»tiGft nhilosonhlca appeared in 1628, inherited Sanctius' doctrine within Idnacer's system—after Linacer he distinguished between syntaxia regularis and or fAgujafe. On the other hand Sanctius’ chief commentator, the Dutch Jacob Voorbroek (Ferlzonius, 1651- 1715), stood fully apart from his master as a basic matter of principle. He sought to overcome and refute Sanctius within a context of empirical -1 analysis of the forms. G.H. Ursin (Ursinus, 1647-1707) upheld Sanctius' doctrine against Perizonius' strictures. Nevertheless, just as Perizonius had shown the role of chance in the formation of language, so did Ursinus assume a syntax!s arbitraria for which there was no other ratio "quam quod auctori- bus linguae, qui ita instituerunt, sic p lacu it,"’ an approach which be longed in the most authentic humanistic tradition. Empiricism also found a witness in the monumental De arte grammatica lib ri VII of Gerhard Johann Voss (Vossius, 1577-1649) of Heidelberg. His norm, unlike Sanctius ratio , was usus. as with most French grammarians of that century, who moved in the wake of th eir mentor Claude Favre de Vaugelas (1595-1650) Guarino Veronese argued that reason and nature coincided with the actual taste of the ancients almost & priori: similarly Valla had identified linguistic rule with ancient usage. Finally, however, Maria de Monte in 1ibid. ^loc. cit., p. 160. 3ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1720 fought Scioppius' theories, characterizing them as "metaphysicum figmentum,"^ showing how Latin grammatical views were running dry by th is time. Thus we have a basically empirical current which ties together such personalities as Vossius, Perizonius, Ursinus, and de Monte, as opposed to the rationalistic one which descended from Scaliger through Sanctius and Scioppius to the school of Port Royal. The division is rather schematic and abstract, for in the actual work of these scholars elements of both points of view are often uniquely combined. The attitudes toward the French language from Vaugelas to Port Royal w ill go through 2 the same stages and the same issues. Curiously enough, the doctrine of figures and the syntax!s omata survived in the standard grammars well into the nineteenth century. There is ample evidence of how constant the presence of the ancient paraphernalia remained on a general theoretical level. However, the view that ornate prose should be figurative, similar to poetry, and rhythmical started to break down as a unified system during the course of the seventeenth century, and the rationalists of the following cen tury worked hard to bring about its final liquidation, though not with- 3 out meeting strong resistance. ibid. %oc, c it., pp. 160-161. 3ibid. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 7 4 - The New Atticism A new prose style cane into general use in Latin and all the vejv A □acular languages at the end of the sixteenth century; Croll' indicates that this style grew out of the various anti-Ciceronian tendencies we have observed. However, he prefers not to call the style "anti-Ciceronian" for three reasons. First, it indicates only revolt and suggests only destructive purposes in a movement that had a definite rhetorical program. Secondly, i t may be taken as describing a h o stility to Cicero himself Instead of to his sixteenth-century "apes," as Politian put it, whereas in fact the supreme rhetorical excellence of Cicero was constantly af firmed by them, as i t was by the ancient snti-Ciceronians whom they imi tated. And thirdly, it was not the term usually employed in the contempo rary controversy, and was never used except by enemies of the movement. The only name hy which its leaders and friends were willing to describe the new style during the century of its triumph, from 1575-1700, was "Attic."2 Hie seventeenth century regarded the history of ancient prose style chiefly as a story of relations and conflicts between two modes of style characterized in modem terms as the oratorical style and the essay style, and described by the kind of ornament most used in each. The oratorical style was distinguished by the use of the schemata verborua. or schemes, 1Croll, Morris W., Style. Rhetoric, sg^ Rhythm. Edited by J . Max Patrick and Robert 0. Evans, with John M. Wallace and R.J. Schoeck. Princeton: Frinoeton University Press, 1966, 51-52. 2ibid. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission which are primarily similarities or repititione of sound used as purely sensuous devices to give pleasure or aid the attention. The essay style is characterized on the one hand ty the absence of these figures, or their use in such subtle variation that they cannot easily be distinguished, and on the other hand, by the use of metaphor, aphorism, antithesis, para dox, and the other figures which, in one classification, are known as the fjgurae sententiae. the figures of wit or thought.^ In the seventeenth century, these two modes were to find a contemporary reflection in the periodic galant style of writers such as Vaugelas, who attempted to imi tate Latin movement, and in the style coupe of the post-Cartesian rational ists, who stripped rhetoric of any ornament. We have also seen that the humanist tradition was an oratorical one, demanded by both the customs and the s p ir it of sixteenth-century l i f e . A period of social unities, it consolidated large masses of people in devotion to a common cause, and gathered them together in popular assem blies which listened with new motives for attention to discourses in the traditional forms of popular orations. The oratorical styles were as various as the elements of the literary tradition in which the Renaissance was living. All of them, however, had their ultimate origin in the Gorgian or Isocratean type of oratory as taught by the orthodox humanists; their 2 aim was to teach their pupils to "write Cicero." Against the literary tyranny of this tradition, and more particularly against its sixteenth-century efflorescence, the representatives of the 1loc. c i t . , p. 54. loc. cit., pp. 62-63. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 modem spirit of progress were in revolt during the last quarter of the century. The temporary unities of the Renaissance were breaking up, and the literary customs that had flowered upon them responded immediately to the tokens of their decay. This revolt began in the theory and prac tice of Maro-Antoine Muret (1526-1585). Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Rome, Muret in one of the boldest of a series of orations beginning in 1565, asserts that the reasons for the practice of oratory in the time of his rhetorical predecessors, Pietro Bembo and Sadoleto, are no longer of any effect in the present age. This was be cause the real concerns of political life, and even the most important legal questions, were no longer decided in the public audience chambers of the senates and courts, but in the private cabinets of ministers of state and in the intimacy of conversation. It was a cynical observation, perhaps, but a true one, justifying Machiavelli's wonderful realism at last, and foretelling the Riehelieus, Bacons, and Cecils of a later generation** Like his colleagues in the new rationalism, Muret not only arrived at his ideas by the first-hand study of facts, but also desired to sup port his case by classical authority. The source of the passage just alluded to seems to be the discussion at the opening of the Rhetorics in which Aristotle3 explains that the justification of oratory is to be found in the imperfection and weakness of judgement character!stic 1lo c. c i t . , p. 64. 2Scaglione, op. cit., p. 142. 3Croll, op. cit., p. 64. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 77 of an uneducated public, incapable of distinguishing truth from error by the tedious process of reason. Aristotle was perhaps the only ancient author whose authority was strong enough to stand up against that of Cicero on a question of this kind, and this famous statement in the Rhetorics was eagerly seized on by the anti-oratorical critics of the seventeenth century. Its echoes are heard from Muret to Bacon to Pascal and Arnauld.^ The orations of 1565 have as their subject the necessary union of science and art in a movement from aapientla (private wisdom) through prudentla (public wisdom) to jurisprudentia (civic virtue). Croll2 characterizes the first oration as ''pure Baconian positivism in rhetoric," marked by broken periods, with every phrase being a thought and the original metaphors themselves thoughts. This is a prose style which came to light within the Jesuit Order or under its patronage in the works of Idpsius, Quevedo, and Gracian.^ At any ra te , by 1565 Muret had re nounced the genuB sublime and the genus ornatum of ancient rhetoric, and adopted the genus humlle. the "plain style," of an A tticist, which boasted the three qualities of Stoic rhetoric* purity of idiom that can be stud ied in the conversation of cultivated people, terseness, and aptness or expressiveness. Muret^ proposed that "the vessels need not be golden, 1ibid« 2loc. cit., pp. 134-136. ^loc. cit., p. 131. ^Scaglione, op. cit., pp. 142-143, citing Muret, Oration 17 in ed. Leipzig, I. See also Croll, op. cit., p. 137. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 they can be earthen, provided the viands are fine and the vessels them selves are veil rubbed (tersa), clean (nitida), trim in appearance." Muret had learned a taste for Plautus from Bade and especially Cujass the first step Justus Idpsius took after Muret converted him from Ciceronianism in 1568 vas a "public profession of his pleasure in the rustic words and ingeneous style" of Plautus. Finally, in an ora tion of 1572, Muret allied himself with Erasmus and Ramus and attacked the doctrine of imitation in favor of individualism. In that same ora tion, Muret,^ unlike Ramus, "placed the study of rhetoric firmly upon the foundation of Aristotle's treatise," where it was to rest during the century of Attic prose which was to follow. This meant "to divorce prose-writing from the customs of epideictic oratory and wed it to phi losophy and science.Rhetoric is thus conceived as something that arises out of a mixture of dialectic and politics: reasoning, feeling, and demonstration are its basic processes. Muret uses the first and second books and the seventeenth chapter of the third book of A ristotle's Rhetorics as the foundation of his wedding of rhetoric to dialectic, and leaves aside, as the later Attics did, the theory of conventional style in the remainder of the work.^ The full implication of Muret's stand will be realized only after recalling the two contrasting currents 1Croll, op. cit., p. 138. 2loc. cit., p. 140. 3ibid. ^Scaglione, op. cit., p. 143* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission of rhetorical thought in antiquity, namely the Sophistical and the Peripatetic . 1 Political motives were not the ones which counted most with the anti-&ceronian leaders* Their scientific interests and above all their universal preoccupation with moral questions played the greater part in determining their rhetorical program. The old claims of phi losophy to precedence over rhetoric, long ago asserted by Plato, are revived by them in much the old terms, and the only justification they will admit for the study of style is that it may assist in the attains 2 ment of the knowledge of oneself and nature. At the same time, the placing of elocution at the center of the rhetorician’s attention produced in the second half of the sixteenth century a new sort of elocution, a sort of "stylistics” different from 1loc. cit., pp. 143-144, note 50: "It seems to me that the current dispute as to the true meaning of the declamations 3 , qyatlones. Invectlvae. and sundry dialogues and epistolary controversies which obtained among the ’civic’ humanists of the first Quattrocento generation is improperly defined on account of a lacking realization of the two historical tra ditions of rhetorical debate. Neither 3 ide of today's historians en gaged in these conflicting interpretations mentions the distinction pointed out above. For one side, the Florentine humanists rediscovered the fundamentals of liberty versus tyranny as a result of their personal involvement in the war against Gian Galeaxzo Visconti; for the other, those same humanists were no more committed to one party than as rhetori cally trained composers of official propaganda pamphlets for the consump tion of a relatively ignorant public. Yet it may well be that the answer lies in the fact that the rhetoric the humanists were using was onoe again, a fte r so many centuries of aotual neglect, th a t of a Demonsthenes or a Cicero, who could undoubtedly calculate the psychological effects of their consciously applied devices, but were far from personally un committed to the Issues at stake. The true discovery of the same human ists was perhaps, we are entitled to assume, that of the genuine, almost forgotten tradition of the heyday of anoient rhetoric." ^Croll, op. cit., p. 66. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 rhetoric as such, whose peculiar task had been to teach the modes of eloquent reasoning. According to Scaglion©,1 the change In emphasis became evident in Francesco Robortello's edition of the Sublime, where it was proclaimed that the true prize of the orator lay not in "persua sion," but in "striking" the audience "as with a clap of thunder" By means of the sublime, the marvelous, the extraordinary* The way was open to the aesthetic of conceits, with Grecian and Tesauro. The atten tion thus shifted from logic to psychology, from reasoning per se to its emotional understructures, hence, .from substance to ornate form. When, in later times, the rationalism of the Classicists and of the Enlightenment will bring grammar and rhetoric back to logic, as with Amauld, Bouhours, Orsi, Du Marsais and a host of other theorists, we might view this as a return to a previous tradition in terms of ideology, although the context of the debate had changed altogether. By that time, in one way or another, the taste for anti-classical forms had in exorably set inj periodic structure and harmonic word order had broken down without possible recourse. This change lay at the root of baroque rhetoric, and it continued to bear fruit amidst the movement that fol lowed.^ Seventeenth-Century French Rhetoric The evolution of French literary taste in the course of the seven teenth century was such that in the last third of the century the gradual ^Soaglione, op. cit., p. 144* 2ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 81 shifting away from every form of indulgence in verbalises as well as witticisms, from every pr^oioite toward the severe ideals of classicism, made franco the least hospitable place to all the Aslanist orientations which characterized much of European baroque. For France, the "liber* tine" la Mothe Le Vayer1 reveals the earliest symptoms of the change to come. In 1638, at the beginning of his Considerations aur I 1eloquence frangolse de ce temps, he professes to treat written style alone, a style to be read, not heard. All that has to do with speaking he repudi ates. Also, he explicitly associates what he calls style coupe with the plain style of the old rhetoric, specifically for its use of pplntea. allusions, and sententiae. even while he imputes it to Virgilio Malvezzi, the Italian author of discourses on Tacitus. Although he makes these identifications with the intent of condemning, not proposing, the "cut" style, it is dear that within the framework of his general orientation he cannot truly espouse the old type of periodic style. The periodic style he does profess carries a different type of periodicity than the ancient one. At the turn of the century Belthasar Gibert2 drew upon la Mothe1 s exposition when he advanced his sharp and unequivocal dis tin ctio n ) "L*oppose du style periodique e st le style coupe." Erycius Puteanus (Eerryk de Putte, 1574-1646), Idpsius1 successor in the chair of rhetoric at Louvain and evidently his follower, had produced a rhetoric of "laconism" as extreme development of the Stoic brevitas (Dg iaoonlsmo Syntagma. 1609). Thinking that there was too ^loc. cit., pp. 188-189. 2ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission much oopia in Demosthenes and other Attic orators, he marshaled, states Croll,1 "an array of 'brief1 ancient writers, Thocydides, Cato, the Gracchi, Sallust, Tacitus, especially, who are properly called Attics, he says, because they are so reticent, so incisive, so significant. But this term is inadequate to express their true glory; they may better, 2 he thinks, be called the Spartans." Guez de Balzac in the preface to his Soorate Chretien of 1652 made the same distinction: "If it becomes necessary to let our heart enter our speech, let it be in a Spartan style . . . or at least Attic." Later he refers to the "Attiques de Rome, qui contrefaisoient Brutus, et n'imiterent pas Ciceron," meaning Seneca and his s c h o o l.3 The leading ideas in Claude Favre Vaugelas' (1595-1650) Remaroues sur la langue fra^alee (1647) appear in the traditional order, running from correctness through elegance to rhythm. He maintained that words and expressions were to be judged by the current usage of the best society, of which, as an habitue of the Hotel de Rambouillet, Vaugelas was a competent judge. The great grammarian (he shares with Malherbe the credit of having purified French diction) began by praising the French language as the most p u t . net, proore ("pour toute sorte de styles"), elegant, and ultimately, for "le nombre et la cadence dans ses periodes, • • • en quoy consists la v eritab le marque de la perfection des langues. 1 Croll, op. d t., p. 71. O Scaglione, op. cit., p. 191. 3ib id . ^ib id. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Vaugelas' then reverted to the standard classical sources to buttress his positions ”Uh language pur, eat ce que Quintillen appelle emendate oratio et un language net, ce qu'il appelle q^ugftda, °ratio • • . ; nettement, c'est-a-dire clairement et intelligiblement* • • .M Nettete or clarity can also be had without purity. Under the fateful term of nettete Vaugelas boldly subsumes both major aspects of composition. In the movement toward the reform of the sentence, including both sentence structure and word order, Vaugelas maintained that Malherbe had had little or no part, and he offered a long lis t of examples of Malherbe's objectionable transpositions.^ However, the new code to which Vaugelas adhered demanded a "constructed” type of sentence, specifically of the periodic variety, which was to be more than merely a strict application of grammatical correctness. He shows no taste for the style coupe. On the contrary, in the character istic vein of his time, Vaugelas tends to favor "the heaping of ligatures with a horror for leaving any syntactical or logical transition unex- plicit, and with the prejudice of increasing the periodic tightness."^ The results are those sentences top-heavy with oul* s and aue's. which ty p ic al of the "Louis XIII sty le"; by becoming redundant and rambling they sin against true periodicity by excess.^ It fell to the generation of Louis XIV to bring that opulence 1ib id . %oc. cit., p. 192. ^loc. c i t . , pp. 192-193* *ibld. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. under control, and it fell to Balzac to teach his public la Juste mesure dea periods b. in Boilean's1 words. Both Vaugelas1 "rambling11 and Balzac's "tight" brands of periodicity evolved under the aegis of an intended imitation of Latin movement, methodically approached in both cases even o though with different results. The process of adapting rhetoric to the needs of the French language had begun under the official sponsorship of Louis XIII and Richelieu, and through the Academy founded in 1635* The important treatises of the century include works by Charles Vial art de Saint-Paul (1632, 1633, 1657), la Mothe Le Vayer ( 1638, 1651), Rene Bary (1653, 1659), N. de Hauteville and G. Gueret (both 1666), Jean de la Sourdiere sieur de Richesource and Franqois Hedelin abbe d'Aubignac (both 1668), Michel- Antoine sieur Le Gras (1671), Bernard Lamy (1675), and J. Carol de Sainte- Garde (1676).^ Descartes Despite the triumph of the traditional rhetorical art, the founda tion upon which it was built was crumbling, and the one man responsible for the reorientation of rhetoric, indeed responsible for the reorienta tion of Western civilization, was Rene Descartes (1596-1650). Insofar as rhetoric is concerned, Descartes' ideas in two areas, logic and the passions, represented respectively by his Discours de la Kathode (1637) 1lb id . 2ib id . 3loc. cit*, p. 194* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 85 and Ifig Passions <£e l'aroe (1649), are the most important of his revolu tionary output. nLe bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagee . . The opening words of the JDiscours dence and their obvious reasonableness, emphasize one of the basic values of the grand siecle; bon sens, together with terms such as raison, nature. ordre. me sure, eauite. bon gout, justesse. bomes. and esprit express the "basic verities" of seventeenth-century civilization and recur in all its writings. A critic like Boileau was constantly trying to determine their place in poetry, while a moralist like La Bruyere tried to deter mine their correct relations to one another. When La Bruyere2 writes "Talent, gout, esprit, bon sens, choses differentes, non incompatibles. Entre le bon sens et la bon gout il y a la difference de la cause a un effet. Entre esprit et talent il y a la proportion du tout a sa p a rtie ." —we know that this is the voice of a man living in a world in which it is natural to speak of measure and proportion. The whole tendency of the century was to express itself in brief, pithy maxims.^ One finds the same tendency at work in definitions like the honnete homroa. the belle ame. and the grand coeur. These terms are in no sense abstractions, but stand for something as vivid and real as the life which 1Turnell, Martin, Classical Moment: Studies of Corneille. Moliere and Racine. A New Directions Book. No place, publisher, or date given, p. 10 2ib id . 3 i b i d . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. pulsates In the words amour, passion, gloire. and honneur which enshrine values of a different kind* Descartes1 preoccupation with Ideas elaines et dlstlnotes is symptomatic. The only things, he said, of which we can be sure are those of which we have clear and distinct ideas, and that describes the policy of the whole century. The policy can be described as the conquest of experience. There was an unceasing effort to trans late more and more of human experience into formulas, as Turnell1 ob serves, "to reclaim it from the vast hinterland which lay just beyond 'reason* and 'good sense*. For as soon as this was achieved, the field of human experience was automatically extended; fresh territories had been brought under the dominion of 'reason1, more pointers were avail able to help people live a 'reasonable' life, and the danger of going off the rails and plunging into anarchy was correspondingly diminished*1* The Discours was published when Descartes was forty-one years of age, and thus one may say that the new logic had its official beginning at that time. But Descartes relates in that treatise that he was twenty- three when he f i r s t evolved his famous method and decided to make i t the rule of his life. Thus the new logic was in existence eighteen years before it reached the public and had some kind of form before the pub lic a tio n o f th a t great sim ilar revolutionaxy document, Francis Bacon1 s 2 S232B Oreanunu More of a spiritual autobiography than a formal exposition, the PL scours recounts how Descartes had become dissatisfied with the literary ^loe. cit., pp. 10-11. 2Howell, Logic and Rhetoric i£ England, op. c it., pp. 313-344. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 education he had received! and vith the entire system of opinions which he (and the surrounding European community) held. There i s active d is taste, however, only for philosophy, by which he meant logic. Descartes1 says of it that it "affords the means of discoursing with an appearance of truth on all matters, and commands the admiration of the more simple." As for the respected beliefs which his education had given him, they seemed to him to re s t more upon example and custom than upon reasoned conviction, and h is fa ith in them began to wane. At th is point—he was sixteen, and the year was 1612—he made a decision symbolic of the de cision made by mankind in turning from the medieval to the modern world: he decided to abandon old beliefs and reconstitute his knowledge. Descartes explains that "For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in travelling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied ex perience, in proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me, and, above all, in making such reflec tion on the matter of ny experience as to secure my improve ment.n Descartes1 reflection upon the matter of his experience during the next seven years produced a t length h is famous method fo r the reconsti tu tin g of h is own knowledge, and i t consisted of four maxims: 3 1ib id . 2loc. cit., pp. 344-345. 3ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 "The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in ny judgement than what was presented to ny mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. "The second, to divide each o f the d iffic u ltie s under exami nation into as many parts as possible, and as might be neces sary for its adequate solution. "The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, fay coranencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by l i t t l e and l i t t l e , and, as i t were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequenoe. "And the l a s t , in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was om itted." Howell1 points out that Descartes' logic breaks with the past in at least three important ways. First, the Olscours calls for a logic that will accept experiment rather than disputation as the chief instru ment in the quest for truth. The logic of the scholastics and the Ramists had been a logic of learned disputation, and its great unwritten assumption had been that by conducting disputes man could detect error and establish truth. Descartes' disagreement with this assumption is sharp and uncompromising. Debate seemed to him useless for the advance ment of learning, because each contestant is concerned above all to win. Descartes^ frequently claimed that the objections of his critics had taught him nothing. Of disputation in general he writes*^ ^loc. c i t . , pp. 346-347* ^France, Peter, Rhetoric and Truth i£ France: Descartes & Diderot. Oxfords Clarendon Press, 1972, 44* ^Howell, op. cit., p. 347. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "And further, I have never observed that any truth before unknown has been brought to light by the disputations that are practiced in the Schools; for while each strives for the v ictory, each i s much more occupied in making the beet of mere verisimilitude, than in weighing the reasons on both sides of the question; and those who have been long good advocates are not afterwards on that account the bet ter judges." Nonetheless, he was not blind to the advantages of some sorts of communi cation. For all his dislike of debate, he often refers to the value of discussion, and he eventually published his discoveries so that they could be verified and extended by others' experiments. The second break with the past is that Descartes' Discours calls for a logic that will be a theory of inquiry rather than a theory of communication. The logic of the scholastics and the Ramists had been formulated as an instrument for the transfer of knowledge from expert to expert. Thus, as Howell 2 states, invention was construed, not as the process of discovering what had hitherto been unknown, but as the process of establishing contact with the known, so that "the storehouse of an cien t wisdom would yield i t s treasures upon demand, and would bring the old truth to bear upon the new situation." The ten places of Ramus, and the ten categories of Aristotle as interpreted by the scholastics, were devices for establishing contact between the new case and the old truth. The problem of arranging the materials thus uncovered was solved by Ramus' theory of method by giving the more general statement prece dence over the less general whenever ideas were arranged in formal trea tises. Ramus stated that those general statements were to be found in 1FJrance, op. c i t . , pp. 42-47. ^Howell, op. cit., p. 347. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. custom and example, but because Descartes found such knowledge doubtful or erroneous* he had to evolve a new method—a method of inquiry. Els whole concept of investigative procedure can be summed up thus: proceed from the sim plest and e a sie st tru th s toward the more complex. Such a procedure stands in sharp contrast to the Ramistio method, which proceeded from the general to the particular.** Third, Descartes calls for a logic of practical as distinguished 2 from speculative science. By practical he meant actually usable in life: "For by them I perceived it to be possible to arrive at know ledge highly usable in life; and in room of the Speculative Philosophy usually taught in the Schools, to discover a Practi cal, by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all other bodies that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply them in the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature." The f i r s t problem o f Descartes1 method re sts on the sta rtin g point, the simplest notions or principles which furnish the material for the subsequent deduction. If the initial premises are false even the soundest deduction oannot lead to knowledge. "The first principles themselves are given by intuition alone," Descartes states,^ and by intuition he means "the undoubting conception of an unclouded and a tten tiv e mind, which springs from the light of reason."^ From these intuitions, we are 1loc. d t,, pp. 347-348. 2loc. c i t . , p. 349. ^Copleston, Frederick, A History o£ Philosophy, vol. 4: MSEB Philosophy: Descartes Jo Iejjm jg. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1963, 85. ^Encyclopaedia Brjtflpiftca.. 1950 ed., s.v. "Descartes," by Abraham Wolf. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to reason deductively: "the remote conclusions* on the contrary* are 4 furnished only by deduction•" Intuition and deduction* then* "are the most certain routes to knowledge."2 The primary to o l of the method i s a methodical doubt which i s in tended to serve as a severe test for whatever may claim to serve as the sure starting-point of knowledge. Everything must be questioned (de omnibus dubitandum) so that we may discover something that is beyond doubt. At first everything seems to succumb to it—traditional beliefs* commonly accepted ideas* the very facts of direct observation may all be but illusions and dreams. Eventually, however, something is discovered that is beyond criticism; namely, doubt itself. He who doubts cannot doubt the reality of his doubting.^ This point had been made centuries earlier by St. Augustine* and we might expect Descartes to follow Augustine in expressing his funda mental existential truth in the form, Si fallor. sum. But doubting is a form of t hinking, "by the word thought I understand sill th a t of which we are conscious as operating in us. "4- And thinking implies a thinker. And so, preferring to formulate his truth in a non-hypothetical form, Descartes^ triumphantly declares* Cogito. ergo sum—nI think, therefore, I am." This, then, is an ultimate certainty, clearly and distinctly ^Copies ton, op. cit., p. 85. 2ib id . ^Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Descartes," op. cit. ^Copleston, op. cit., pp. 100-101. cyclopaedia Britannica. "Descartes," op. cit. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 realized, that cannot be denied. This, however, implies that whatever is apprehended as clearly and as distinctly is true. In this way, Descartes found a philosophical basis for the acceptance of intuition. Furthermore, deductions from intuitions must at each step be as clearly and distinctly apprehended as the initial intuition, though the connec tion between the final stage of a series of deductions and the initial intuition may be a matter of memory rather than of immediate apprehension. Among the ultimate intuitions Descartes evidently included the principle of universal causation, otherwise he could never have passed from Coed to. ergo sum to the existence of God to the reality of things that are clearly and distinctly apprehended.^ Descartes deals rather summarily with the existence of bodies, and he does not treat specifically the problem of our knowledge of the existence of other minds. But his general argument is that we receive impressions and "ideas" and that as God has implanted in us a natural inclination to attribute them to the activity of external material causes, the latter must exist. And Descartes would doubtless produce an analo gous argument, with an appeal to the divine veracity, for the existence of other minds.2 The natural conclusion to reach from Descartes’ writings on the relatio n sh ip between mind and body i s th a t the human being consists of two separate substances and that the relation of mind to body is analo gous to that of the pilot to the ship. In point of fact, Descartes 1ib id . 2Copieston, op. cit., p. 126. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 denies this, and thus finds himself in a difficult position. Onthe one hand, his application of the criterion of clarity and distinctness leads him to emphasize the real distinction between soul and body and even to represent each of them as a complete substance. On the other hand, he does not want to accept the conclusion which appears to follow, namely, that the soul is simply lodged in the body which it uses as a kind of extrinsic vehicle or instrument. He was aware that the soul is influenced by the body and the body by the soul and that they must in some sense constitute a unity. Descartes^ was not prepared to deny the facts of interaction, and, a3 is well known, he tried to ascertain the point of interaction! "In order to understand all these things more perfectly we must know that the soul is really joined to the whole body, and that we cannot, properly speaking, say that it exists in any one of its parts to the exclusion of the others, be cause i t i s one and in some manner in d iv isib le . . . . (But) it is likewise necessary to know that although the soul is joined to the whole body, th ere is yet a certain p a rt in which it exercises its funotions more particularly than in all the others; and it is usually believed that this part is the brain, or possibly the heart. • • • But, in examining the m atter with care, i t seems as though I have c le arly ascer tained that the part of the body in which the soul exercises its functions immediately is in no way the heart, nor the whole of the brain, but merely the most inward of all its parts, to wit, a certain very small gland which is situated in the middle of its substance and which is so suspended above the duct whereby the animal spirits in its anterior cavities have conmunication with those in the posterior that the slight est movements which take place in it alter the course of these spirits; and reciprocally that the smallest changes which occur in the course of the spirits may do much to change the movements of th is gland.n This theory of interaction is the basis of Descartes' analysis of the passions. That is to say, he holds that passion is excited or 1loc. cit., pp. 130-131. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission caused in the soul by the body. "What in the soul is a passion is in the body, commonly speaking, an action."1 If understood in a narrower sense, "we may define them generally as the perceptions, feelings, or emotions of the soul which we relate specially to it and which are caused, maintained and fortified by some movement of the spirits."2 The passions, says Descartes,3 "are all good in their nature," but they can be misused, and they can be allowed to grow to excess. Ve have, therefore, to control them. But the passions "depend absolutely on the actions which govern and direct them, and they can be altered only in directly by the s o u l . "4 As long as the causes remain, the commotion of the soul remains, and in this case the most that we can do is "not to yield to its effects and to restrain many of the movements to which it disposes the body."'* We can control the passions indirectly "by the representation of things which are usually united to the passions which we desire to have, and which are contrary to those which we desire to se t aside. Thus in order to excite courage in oneself and remove fear, it is not sufficient to have the will to do so, but we must also apply ourselves to consider the reasons, the objects or the examples which persuade us that the peril is not great.Descartes is quite Socratic 1loc. cit., p. 151* 2ib id . 3ibid. 4ibid. 5loc. cit., p. 152. 6ib id , Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 In his insistence on the competence of right reason to conduce to right fee lin g and action. The power which Descartes a ttrib u te s to reason and w ill may seem to be at odds with his naturalistic, mechanical account of such large tra c ts of human experience. However, his larg er aim was re a lly to vin dicate the supremacy of the human mind or spirit* He regarded the human body as a machine, and treated mechanically all such human experiences as might conceivably be credited to lower animals; but Descartes claimed unique privileges for the rational soul, which he regarded as the dif- 1 ferentla of man, and as absolutely independent of all that is material. Port Royal The theories of rhetoric and language based on Cartesian thought were destined to destrsy traditional rhetoric as represented by Vaugelas, and the first assault came with the publication in 1662 of la Iagjoue. 22i l-'M 3a Penser. The authors of this celebrated work were Antoine Amauld (1612-1694) and Pierre Nicole (1625-1695), the former of whom composed the first draft for circulation in manuscript, and the latter of whom helped to prepare the first printed edition and to expand the text for subsequent editions* These two men were close associates in a group of mystics and reformers congregated at the Cistercian abbey of Port Royal near Paris. Theologically this group subscribed to the principles of Jansenism, and thus sought to live by a high moral code and to spread such doctrines as that of the complete depravity of man, 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica* "Descartes," op. cit. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission the actuality of predestination, and the impossibility of full atone ment.1 The most famous of the Port-R oyalists m s Blaise Pascal, who, through his Provincial letters2 and his Thoughts on made Jansenism an impressive force in France during the seventeenth century. In addition to their accomplishments in theology, the Fort-Royallsts believed in the reform of education, and to this end they arranged them selves against the methods used by the Jesuits and by the universities. * The schools which they established came to be known as the Petites Bcoles of Port Royal, and two of the textbooks written to demonstrate their reforms became celebrated.^ The f i r s t , the Grammaire Generals e£ Ralsonnee. was written by Claude Lancelot in 1660 as an outgrowth of talks with Arnauld;^ the second is the Logiaue of Arnauld and Nicole. The Gramnaire leads logically up to the Logiaue. and when they came to write the Logiaue. Arnauld and Nicole undoubtedly sought the advice of Pascal. Not only was his reflection on the geometric method used, but his Art <£i Persuader, founded on "the knowledge of all that passes in the innermost parts of man, and which he scarcely ever knows,was added as well. The real foundation of the Logiaue. however, was Descartes' Pi scours. ^For a complete portrait of Jansenism, see Knox, R.A., Enthusiasm: A Chapter i a History of 2sli£l2a« Hew York: Oxford U niversity Press, 1950. Pp. 622. ^See Pascal, Blaise, The Provincial Letters. No translator given. London: Griffith Farran Okeden and Welsh, n.d. Pp. 324. ^Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in England, op. cit., pp. 351-352. 4ftea, Lilian, The Enthusiasts of Port-Royal. London: MsthUon and Company, 1912, 142. 5ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 7 Divided into four parts, the Logiaue considers the operations of the mind under the aspects of conception, judgement, reasoning, and ordination. Following Descartes, it tries to prove that all ideas do not come from <1 the senses, but that there are some absolutely independent of any images. "Conception" and "judgement" were the mental acts used to analyse and de fine matters of style; thus did Arnauld replace the old grammar of rhe to ric with the new grammar of lo g ic. Nor did Arnauld and Nicole see any need fo r adding an a rt of expression, the e ffe c t of which was simply, in their view, to encourage false and hyperbolic thoughts and forced figures.^ The debt toward Scaliger and Sanctius, the authoritative upholders of a rational method of linguistic analysis, was gratefully acknowledged by the masters of Port Royal as early as Lancelot's Methode . . . latine (fifth edition, 1656). The impact of the Port Royal Grammalre was also enormous; it marked the triumph of the new "objective" principle, la raison, against the tyranny of usage, already under attack as inconclu sive, contradictory, and subjective.^ This logical exclusivism was the result, not of inability to per ceive the irrational elements in mental and linguistic functions, but of a conscious struggle toward a selective and hierarchic view of all the factors involved in the thinking process. It was a rigorous attempt to assign due priorities, and putting first things first meant putting reason ahead of all others. Nicole himself had authored as early as 1 i b i d . %caglione, op. cit., p. 195. 3 i b i d . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 1659 a Traite de la beaute des ouvrages d1esprit translated from Latin; it was, indeed, a sort of "art of expression" where he discovered, under the sovereign principle of nature, what later cane to be called the language affectlf. as against the language ralsonne of ancient rhetoric. This language of the emotions reappeared in the Logiaue as the sens accessolre. an added dimension to the meaning of words beyond their objective and literal significationJ Even while this view of mental functions inserted expressive rhetoric directly into the body of logical analysis, it also amounted to an upsetting of the traditional rhetoric of oraatus. In this sense the Logiaue left its mark in the successive developments of formal rhetoric, since in dealing with "natural rhetoric" Bernard Lamy (who borrowed almost everything from Fort Royal) took up again a*:d elaborated on the principle of Idees accessolre s. The complex attitude of the Pert-Royal theorists vis-a-vis the traditional categories of rhetoric must be understood within their Cartesian distrust, not only of rhetoric itself, but even of formal dialectic, since they viewed the latter as a "theoretical rhetoric" and the former as a "practical dialectic." This distrust centered on the critique of the method of com&onplaces, or topics, regarded as mental abberatlon, which hindered and corrupted the operations of our natural powers by supplying ready-made sets of arguments to be adapted to any given question. They "are in themselves of very little use, and not only do not contribute much to form the judgment, which is the end 1loc. cit., pp. 195-196. 2ib id . with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 of true logic, bat often are very injurious, for two reasons, which it is important to remark.Their two reasons are to the effect that the topics are arbitrary man-made conventions rather than ultimate truths, and that they lead men to be satisfied with verbal formulations rather than with a distinct knovledge of things.2 This radical change of approaoh could go so far as to affect the whole notion of vrtmAirf« of the real. Just as the topics, hence the whole of "invention," were discredited in the eyes of these authors, they also cut out, "in everything except sacred oratory, most of the third link in the rhetorical chain of invention, arrangement, and elo cution. The condemnation of the established approach to elocution as omatus was unequivoval. Ornate language and especially the copious eloquent style which Cicero called abundantem sonantlbus verbis uberi- bueaue sententiis tend to conceal falsities. Points, rhyme, verbal jingles are all sources of error.^ The result was, at least in principle, a complete denial of the method sponsored by Vaugelas. The rigor of logic was called in to replace the uncontrollable fancies of the court, and usage was dethroned. Part of this vigorous reaction against the formalistic concerns of the time resulted in the Jansenists' disincli nation to cverstress the value of sentence structure, as of any sort of ornamentation. Even if only indirectly, this attitude typically 1Howell, logic 2 Z& Rhetoric is. °P* cit., p. 353. 2ib id . 3scaglione, op. cit., p. 197. *ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 contributed to the dissolution of the periodic style, both in its old "Ciceronian" or "Isocratic" forms and in the baroque forms of the ppintes as veil* Together with this technical shift went a broad change of aesthetic sensibility which deeply affected the critical attitudes toward literary values* The ancients had placed emphasis on "poetic" qualities in prose; the new rationalism (within both Classicism and Enlightenment) was clear ly oriented away from poetry toward a "prosaic" forma mentis* and it placed dearness, correctness, and preciseness (la mg£ Juste) on such a high pedestal that these tended to incorporate and subsume all other 2 possible qualities of style* The changed viewpoint under the direct impact of the Port-Royal manuals invaded both rhetorical and grammatical treatises, notably that of Bernard Lamy. It was the beginning of the new thrust toward practical metaphysics and the discarding of the empirical method for the deductive one* "Reason" will turn out to be a stimulating and creative factor on both sentence structure and word order by Imposing new standards and new emphases—sty le coupe and ordre n a tu re l. The new ta s te and the "logical" theoretical postulates will go hand in hand toward a radical, far-reaching reform of attitudes and modes of expression*3 The Port-Royal grammar must be credited with a basic new slant in the understanding of the mechanism of sentences* Under its influence ^oc. cit*, p* 198* 2loc. cit., p* 199* 3loc* cit*, pp* 200-201. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 emerged a new feeling for the unity of the sentence. Any lack of logical coherence between the parts of a sentence would no longer be tolerated. The sensitivity of the critics will go so far as to rule out even a harm less change of subject as offensive to this need for logical continuity. Words not strictly required by a direct, sober, logically coherent ex pression of the subject matter were now rejected as useless. The new rationalistic framework supersedes the hedonistic sensualism of old. Writers become accustomed to the idea that everything has its correct way to be expressed, and one only, une expression unique which excludes variation and choice. This crystallization of expression has a linguis tic (grammatical) as well as a stylistic (rhetorical) side. On the one hand, the vocabulary has firmed up and become fixed in its definitions, so that hesitation and groping are no longer tolerable. On the other hand, the rejection of frills and semantically unjustified variants or fill-ins moves hand in hand with the assertion of plain style, which demanded just that. All these matters are made to fall under the cate- gories of n e tte te . c la rte . and Style Coupe Speculation on syntactic structures (periodic and clausal) has never been more lively than in the later Middle Ages and in the eight eenth century. It so happens that these are the periods in which the couoe style was most widely cultivated, both in Latin and in the ver naculars. For example, a particular use of conjunctions is a basic "*loc. c i t ., pp. 201-203. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 2 feature of cut style* The classical languages were generously endowed with a wealth of purely decorative or euphonic particles* In the Middle Ages some conjunctions had become technlfied (auare. aula), others, coveralls (ouod). The Renaissance and Baroque had yielded to the clas sical examples and imported Into the vernaculars a number of conjunctions used merely to achieve a rather perfunctory feeling of periodicity* The eighteenth century witnessed a severe effort to define the meaning and function of conjunctions, used to denote precise, limited relationships, not just vague liaisons dg discours* Otherwise, the age felt inclined to eliminate formal ligatures between phrases and to curtail the use of relatives and participles.1 A new appeal to logic appeared in terms of a necessary correspond ence between arrangement of words into sentences and the logical sequence of our thinking processes, a trend conducive to a reduction of hypotaotic to paratactic forms through the aid of ellipsis* Instead of sayings "lour friend did not mention you to me, although he had an opportunity to do so when I saw him yesterday," the speaker affecting the modes of cut style might say: "I saw your friend yesterday; he did not mention you to me." The outcome i s undoubtedly a gain in vividness and ra p id ity .2 For Condillac the sequence of statements is an explication, des idles in their logical and psychological succession. The phrasee princlpales are tied together chiefly by the fact of the succession itself, aided and implemented by gradation and opposition. The logical progression 1loc* cit., p. 214-* 2loc. cit., pp. 214-216. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 of thought is merely a consequence of syntactic suggestion, without explicit morphological transitions.^ Du Marsais gave the style coupe the canonic blessing of the Sacvclopedle by discussing it in his famous 2 article "Construction." He defined it as being made up of phrases: "compose d1in cise s, c 'e s t-a -d ire de phrases courtes par opposition aux membrea de la periods, qui ont une certaine etendue." The favorite structure of the new style is binary, and the anti thesis, which the seventeenth century had brought to the heights of the most consummate refinement, lends itself magnificently to this pattern. Voltaire is the master of the binary cut style as a vehicle for anti thetic paradox. Starobinski^ has recently shown how this stylistic p a tte rn was the center o f a system which embraced Voltaire* s whole con ception: in L* In genu he worked, composed, and conceived by a doppietta law or binary method expanding from the antithetic structure of the sentence through the arrangement of the chapters, all the way to the very organization of the tale as a whole. It can also be demonstrated the the sty le coupe could rigorously lean fo r e n tire ly new e ffe c ts on the time-tested devices of isocolon and jingle-like endings, in other words, on a newly f e l t sense of formal symmetry. The cut style could be satisfying as long as it drew force and richness from those ingredients inherited from the baroque which could ^loc. cit., pp. 216-217. 2ib id . %oc. cit., pp. 218-219, citing J. Starobinski, "La doppietta di Voltaire. La Filosofia di uno stile e lo stile di una filosofia," sjaassau QriUffA* i (Oct. 1966), 13 - 32 . with permission of the copyright owher. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. be put to advantage by curtness of exposition, namely wit, sententious ness, and paradox, all served by the versatile device of antithesis* Once these sources of inspiration had started to slacken and dry up, the style began to show its limitations and sound arid* Hence Buffon's and Rousseau's reaction, or rather progression, toward a new kind of intellectual complexity and musical sweep, some new kind of "period. Ordre Katurel At the same time that the style coupe was being developed, another issue, that of word order, was becoming fashionable in France, reaching a climax around 1750. The stylistic consciousness of the age fastened on it as a testing ground for some of its most original ideas, in a unique convergence of grammatical, rhetorical, and logical criteria. The stages in this debate correspond to the main cultural movements of the age* After a first stage exemplified by the empiricism of Vaugelas, placing usage above reason, the Cartesian position, chiefly through Port Royal, proposed reason to explain the apparent arbitrariness and whims of usage. Rationalism provoked its own reaction in the form of 2 sensationalism, which eventually ripened into the Romantic approach. Rectus ordo and "natural order" began to be speculated about with modern im plications rath e r early in the Middle Ages, and the French exploitation of the matter in a nationalistic sense also began early. The vernacular grammarian Louis Meigret (c. 1510-1560) maintained that 1loc. cit., p. 222. 2ib id . with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. one should put an end to the imitation of Latin because the ordre de nature, which is characteristic of French, established a barrier between the two languages. The and clarte of French were attributed to its regular word order. 1 Maupas 2 founded the French "natural order" on the ordre aa£a£§i de r.ej&er^emefl&. Vaugelas realized that arrangement of words is one of the great secrets of style, Nicolas Mercier maintained that the subversion of natural order by inversion exacted a high price in the form of the en suing confusion. And on a more practical level, critical readers began to show a keen sensitivity to inversion. For Le Gras^ wl*hyperbate,“ good in Latin, is bad in French, whose "genie consiste a s'exprimer dans un order natural." Progress on a more theoretical level was slow. The Port-Royal Latin Grammar (1650) of Lancelot^- started the debate with the simple, yet effective, statement: "L'hyperbate est le meslange et la confusion qui se trouve dans les mots contre l fordre naturel de la construction, qui devroit estre commun a toutes les langues comme nous le voyons en la nostre,11 not a very unprejudiced way of introducing Latin construc tion. The Gramma! ra gendrale gives very little space to a section on syntax. Arnauld and Nicole pointed out that French uses such figures 1loc, cit., p. 223. ^loc. c i t ., pp. 223-224-. 3ibid., citing Le Gras, In Rethorioue francoise (Paris, 1671, 167A2), p. 197. ^loc. cit., p. 225, citing Cl. Lancelot, Nouvelle Methods , . • Latine. 1650 ed, p. 402, 1655 ed. p. 602, oh. v i "Des figures de con struction." with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 106 of construction less than any other language.1 Chomsky2 has shrewdly remarked that "the failure to formulate rules of sentence construction In a precise way was not simply an oversight of Cartesian linguistics. To some extent i t was a consequence of the express assumption that the sequence of words in a sentence corresponds directly to the flow of thought, at least in a 'well-designed* language, and is therefore not properly studied as a part of grammar*" The argument that the french language was superior to Latin by virtue of its adhering to natural order had been a part of the "Querelle des anciens et des modemes." The Jesuit Father Le Laboureur^ added arguments to this doctrine of natural order and turned it into something systematic, offering it again as proof of the superiority of French over Latin and perhaps all other languages, since French seemed to him almost alone in its degree of faithfulness to the order of nature and logic. Also, in Latin, he maintained, conception and expression did not cor respond: the l a t t e r was not a v eritab le image ge le u r pen 3 ee. The disparity in Latin between the verbal sequence and flow of thought en tails a betrayal of the goad of language, the immediate and clear com munication of thought. Hence inversion represents a "desordre contraire a 1*institution de la parole, en tant qu'il suspend et qu'il trouble meme quelque fois I 1intelligence du discours. 1loc. cit., pp. 225-226. 2ibid., citing N. Chomsky, Cartesian P* 28. ^loc. cit., pp. 227-228. 4ibid., citing Louis U> Laboureur, Avaatagefl ge la langqg sur la 1. latine (Paris, 1669), 2e dissertation, p. 149. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The "normal" order, meaning the most frequent, seemed "natural" and "rational" to the philosophically inclined because of its apparent cor respondence to a succession of parts based on their logical function, and because of the traditional view of inversion as an artifice to achieve special, "artistic" effects. The impact of rationalism in this area is nowhere more evident than in Dominique Bouhours (1628-1702), a moderate follower of the modemes and above all a follower of Vaugelas and his doctrine of usage above raison: even Bouhours acknowledged the unquali fied rule of raison in the p a rtic u la r domain of word order, where, ac cording to him, usage has no authority.1 Bouhours1 position on this matter implies a realization of aesthetic value as independent of, and possibly conflicting with, the laws of reason and clarity in the use of language (other than French). This inference was consistently implied in the centuried speculation on sty le . What does emerge in Bouhours is the notion that French enjoys a unique advantage in combining the a esth e tic and the lo g ic al, the emotional and the ratio n a l, harmony and 2 clarity, since it does not need inversion to achieve elegance. The charge of "disorderliness" leveled against Latin became a trade mark of the modemes in the famous ttuerelle. whose arguments were sum marized by Franqois Charpentier (1620-1702), another champion of th e ir cause. He brings in authorities from Plato through Aristotle and Cicero and Quintilian to support the preference for ordre direct, a new term carrying with it the new logical emphasis which will tend to replace 1ib id . ^loc. cit., p. 229. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission the previous ordre naturel. Charpentier also maintains that every de- parture from the right construction involves an Increased effort on the part of the hearer, with two operations being needed instead of one, since the direct order mist be re to red to attain intelligibility.1 A keen interest in the mental processes leading to linguistic ex pression had compelled Arnauld and his collaborators to fill, in part, the gap left by Descartes in this area. As we have seen, for the Cartesians the pure level of thinking takes place in a mind divorced from the body. It consists of a process of abstraction which is neces sary to correct the distortion and corruption suffered by our perceptions in travelling from the corporeal senses through the imagination and the passions. The objects act through the senses, and by stimulating them cause sensorial impressions which are then carried over the nerves to the brain in the form of images. The mind now takes over, but before they reach the nobler level of pure thinking the impressions-images enter the antechamber of the passions and imagination, where they are renewed, interpreted, and also distorted. It falls, at last, to reason to filte r and purify them. The mechanistic nature of Descartes' physi ology, as documented in l£§ passions d,e l ' fone. seemed to his early fol lowers to conflict with the metaphysical side of his system. Some of them were inclined to lay the stress on the former, so that this inner contradiction fostered a naturalistic orientation which in due course fed the most consistent adherence to empirical sensationalism and even 2 outright materialism.*" 1lo c . c i t . , pp. 230-231* 2loc. cit., p. 232. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 Lamy "La passion," wrote Pascal,^ "ne peut &tre belle sans exces. Qnand on n1aime pas trop, on n'aline pas assez." In these sentences Pascal puts his finger on the great problem of the seventeenth century. The side of human nature on which French writers chose to concentrate was 2 precisely the conflict between reason and passion, or what Pascal him self called the "guerre intestine de l'honme entre la raison et les passions." He continues: "This internal war of reason against the passions has divided those who desire peace into two sects. The first would like to renounce th e ir passions, and become gods; the others would like to renounce reason, and become brute beasts. But neither can do as they wish, and reason s till remains to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions and to trouble the re pose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions always remain alive in those who try to get rid of them." The dilemma is plain. Whether one liked it or not, and many of the seventeenth-century writers emphatically did not, man is endowed with "reason" and "passion," both being in a state of perpetual conflict with each other. Furthermore, neither alone is sufficient to produce "the good life." The only healthy condition is a regulated tug-of-war. The peculiar vitality of French literature in the seventeenth century lies in the very delicate balance between reason and passion, and is a result of an ambivalent attitude towards authority. As Descartes had stated, authority is not to be accepted passively. It is accepted and resisted. This tug-of-war is the real theme of the great imaginative 1Tumell, op. cit., p. 14* 2ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 writers of the age, of Corneille, Molifcre, Racine.1 This Is the conflict Bernard Lamy (1640-1715) attempted to resolve In his A& Blep Parler (1670), and In so doing, opened up the way for the period to come. Insofar as logic and rhetoric are concerned, Lany^ undertook to move Arnauld's theoretical logic toward practical logic, from principle to rules “Les langues ne se polissent que lorsqu'on commence a raison- ner, qu'on bannit du langage les expressions qu'un usage corrumpu y a introduites, qui ne s'appergoivent que par des gens sqavants, et par une connoissance exacte de l'A rt que nous traitons." In the areas of sentence structure and word order, Lamy was the culmination of the POrt- Royalist, Ramist, and anti-Ciceronian trends, in many ways effecting a compromise. Lamy broke new ground, however, in his discussion of the passions and imagination. As we have seen, Descartes' mechanistic treatment of physiology seemed to his early followers to be in conflict with his metaphysics, especially in the area of the mental processes leading to lin g u istic expression. This c o n flict f i r s t clearly emerged in Geraud de Corderaoy's^ Discours physique de la parole of 1668. Here the imagi nation is attributed an essential role in the formation of language. The coupling of sign and impression takes place in the brain in a purely mechanical process. Later followers took a position in defence of imagi 1loc. cit., pp. 14-17. 2Scaglione, op. cit., p. 200. ^See Howell, Logic and Rhetoric ifi England, op. c it., pp. 378-382. ^Scaglione, op, c i t ., pp. 232-233* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 111 nation and carried it to the realm of ordre natural, Lamy1 presented the opposition to the ordre nature! in a theoretically grounded context involving the doctrine of imagination. He used the analogy of a paint ing to describe the mental events leading to speech, whose foundation thus became psychological rather than rational. The Latin phrase was said to show the unity of a picture giving simultaneously all its ele ments, whereas the French breaks them up through a descending succession: "the spatial totality of the former contrasts with the time-fragmentation of the latter," This opened the way to a lively current which was re ferred to a 3 rhetoriaue naturiste. and was also represented by Du Marsais, Racine, Batteux, Condillac, and Rousseau, The ground was thus being prepared for the great polemic of the eighteenth century.^ Before Lamy, the conflict between reason and passion had not been satisfactorily reconciled. For example, Nicole^ ultimately denied the validity of sensible pleasurable reactions in aesthetic judgements. Lamy, 4- however, establishes for the first time the validity of the judge ment of the sense with reason as a critical faculty, A recognition of the importance of sensible pleasure as a requirement for intellectual satisfaction also allows for the entrance of Cartesian mechanistic physics and the physiology of choc in reference to the operation of the 1ib id . ^loc, c i t , , pp. 233-234* ^Sadowsky, Rosalie D.L., "Jean-Baptiste Abbe Dubois: The Influence of Cartesian and Neo-Aristotelian Ideas on Music Theory and Practice." Unpublished doctor's dissertation, Tale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1960, 54. ^ibid. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 physical organs in pleasurable aesthetic reactions* Lamy^ recognizes (as had Descartes) the Intensity of sensible im- pressions over rational ones* He also recognizes the importance of pleasure (after Hobbes) In providing Impetus to ultimately Intellectual operations* The very excitement or agitation of the physical organs, as long as it is not harmful, is a source of pleasure to man. In spite of such statements, Lacy is not a sensationalist. In the first place, Lamy2 subscribes to the general Port-ftoyal Cartesian belief that "discourse is the image of the mind." Also, if man is so consti tuted as to respond to elements of sound which cause pleasurable sensible reactions, then the artist must take account of human physical organiza tion. The ultimate aim is never the mere excitation of pleasure, how ever, but the engagement of the mind in some recognition of tru th or of idea. Thus, the senses serve as mere "portals of the mind," and sound as a physical phenomenon may only be the servant of some quality of mind. Since reason alone is the only true quality of mind and all else concerned in the transmission of sound is physical (although also "nat ural"), "reason must regulate the advantages of n a t u r e ."3 Lamy devotes the third part of his treatise to the subject of sound and its relationship to grammar and concept. His discussion of passions follows Descartes' tre a tis e on the passions; Lamy's discussion of the mechanism of the effect of sound on the human organism i s , however, an ^oc. cit., pp. 54-55. 2ib id . ^ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 adaptation of the premises expounded in Descartes1 Compendium Muaices of 1618 (published in 1650 as the Abrec6 1& Musiaue) from music to 1 speech. In the Compendium. Descartes had presented eight a priori conditions which were necessary to make sound agreeable and moving. Lamy^ lays down six conditions almost identical with those of Descartes: 1. "God has decreed . . . that whatever happens to the Body, and disturbs not its good disposition, should give him con tent. It is pleasing to see, to feel, to touch, to taste, etc. . . . The sense of sound must then be pleasing to the ear, when it strikes it with moderation. 2. "A Sound ought to be d is tin c t, and by Consequence strong enough to be heard. . . • Whatever we discern clearly, whether by the sense or the mind, is pleasant. 3. "The equality of sounds contributes to the rendering of them distinct. . . . Unequal Sounds that strike the Organs strongly or weakly, swiftly or slowly without proportion, trouble the mind. 4. "Diversity is as necessary as Equality. . • • Equality grows tedious and insupportable when continued too long. . . . A Sound tir e s the Ear by strik in g upon i t too long. 5. "Numbers three and four must be united. In appearance the two last conditions are incompatible . . . but they agree very well, and equality and variety may consist with out any confusion. 6. "This agreement of equality and variety ought to be sen sible, so as the temperament may be perceivable to the Ear. Wherefore a ll Sounds in which th a t Agreement i s to be found, ought to be joyn’d, and the ear ought in lik e manner to hear them without any considerable interruption. . . . That the Ear may discern the order and proportion of several Sounds, ^loc. cit., p. 56. 2Waite, William G«, "Bernard Lamy, Rhetorician of the Passions." Studies Eighteenth-Century Mii§i£s A aziM ft & gag, GyfoABBMK 2& hi a Seventieth Birthday. Edited by H.C. Robbins Landon and Roger E. Chapman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970, 391-392. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 it is necessary that they be compar’d: In all comparisons 't i s supposed the terms of the Comparison are present, and joyn'd one vith the other, and it is this union that makes the Beauty and Pleasure of Harmony." For later theorists such as Lamy, who had the further background of Cartesian mechanistic treatises at their disposal, Descartes' eight conditions appeared in the nature of universal rules in a rational ex planation of the phenomenon of language,^ and Lamy2 further maintains that the principles of musical sound and verbal sound are one and the same: "These Conditions are necessary to a ll Sounds to make them agree able, whether it be the sounds of the voice, or of Instruments." L am y's^ explanation of the effect of sound on the passions closely follows Descartes' original discussion: "To search into the Causes of this marvellous sympathy betwixt Numbers [the proportions of speech! and our Soul, and how they came to that power and Efficacy upon our pas sions, we must know that the motions of the mind do follow the motions of the Animal Spirits; as those Spirits are slow or quick, calm or turbulent, the mind is affected with different Passions: The least force is able to obstruct or excite the Animal Spirits, their resistance is but small; and their Levity is the cause that the least unusual motion determined them; the least motion of a sound puts them in agitation. Our Body is so dispos'd, that a ruff and boy- sterous sound forcing our Spirits into the Muscles, disposes it to flight, and begets an aversion, in the same manner as a frightful Object begets horror by the eye. On the other side a soft and moderate sound, attracts and invites our at tention. If we speak lowd or hastily to a Beast, it will run from us; by speaking gently, we allure and make it tame. From whence we may c o lle c t th a t d iv ersity of Sounds do pro duce d iv ersity of motions in the Animal S p irits . "Every motion that is made in the Organs of Sense, and 1Sadowsky, op. c i t . , p. 57. 2Waite, op. cit., p. 392. ^loc. c i t ., pp. 393-394* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 communicated to the Animal S p irits, i s connext hy the God of Nature, to some certain motions of the Soul: Sounds can excite passions, and we may say, that every Passion answers to some sound or other; which i t i s , th a t excites in the AtHimI Spirits, the motion wherewith it is allyed. This connexion is the cause o f our Sympathy with Numbers, and that naturally according to the Tone of the Speaker, our Resentment, [i.e. feelingH is different. If a tone be lan guishing and doleful, i t in sp ires sadness; i f i t be lowd and brisk, it begets vivacity and courage; some Ayres are gay, and others Melancholly. "To discover the p a rtic u la r Causes of th is Sympathy, and explain how among the numbers, some produce sadness, some joy, we should consider the different motions of the Animal Spirits in each of our Passions. It is easy to be conceiv'd, th a t i f the impression of such a sound in the Organs of hearing i s follow 'd by a motion in the Animal S p irits lik e that which they have in a fit of anger (that is, if they be acted violently and with inequality), it may raise Choller, and continue it. On the contrary, if the impression be doleful and melancholy, if the commotion it causes in the Animal Spirits be feeble and languishing, and in the same temper as common in Melancholy, what we have sayd ought not to seem strange; especially if we reflect upon what has been deriv'd to us from many eminent Authors relating to the strange effects of Music." The implications of this passage are clear: although dealing with a verbal a rt, the passions may be aroused by sound alone, sound as a quantity, as matter in motion. And not only can sound serve to excite the passions, but the same sound can also serve to present ideas or images of things to the mind, th a t is , sounds per 52 are significative.^ Thus does Lamy** draw a ra tio n a lis tic basis fo r the connection of sound and passion from Descartes' theory of language as a communicator of ideas: "It is not to be doubted but sounds are significative; and of power to renew the Ideas of several things: The sound of a Trumpet, ISadowsky, op. cit., p. 57. ^Waite, op. cit., p. 395. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 does i t not have a secret Allyance and Connexion among themselves, and do excite one another* It is not to be question'd but certain sounds, c ertain Numbers, and certain Cadences do contribute to awake the Images of things with which they have had allyance and connexion.11 It is easy -I to see on this basis how Lamy conceived of the effeot of sounds on three levels: "On the one level, the physical organ of sense provides its own judgment of acceptable sound in its pleasure with the proportion of the incoming sound stimulus* On a second level, the connection o f mind and body allows sounds to have sig nificative attributes and thus serve in communicating ideas of corporeal objects. On the highest (i*e* morally or ethi cally highest) level, the same mathematical proportion pro vides a mechanistic impetus to the moving of passions whose aim i s the d irection of the soul to tru th or goodness* The ultimate appearance of ideas or passions in the soul depends on a chain reaction starting with the perception of sound • • • : the movement is carried from the organ through the spirits and nerves to the soul, where it appears as an idea or passion. Only ideas have ultimate moral validity; pleas ure in either sense organ or in the passion as movement must be considered merely as an insinuating device to introduce an idea of good or truth to the mind and to indicate the d irectio n the mind must tra v e l, making such a d irectio n de sirable through the feelings of pleasure aroused in either organ or affective reaction." The importance which the moving of the passions possesses causes 2 Lamy to d ir~ ’.?? the mechanism of moving the passions, a discussion which hinges on what he c a lls the "marvellous sympathy betwixt numbers and our soul." He develops a mechanistic aesthetics, which became the theoretical basis for a rationalized approach to musical rhetoric, the subject of the next chapter.^ 1Sadowsky, op. c it* , pp. 57-58. 2 1 q c . cit., p. 59. 3tfaite, op. cit., p. 395. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 The group of generally Cartesian rhetorical treatises, published roughly from 1650-1680, was followed by a phase of consolidation during which the positions just discussed were often reiterated more or less mechanically as if the issues could be taken for granted. However, the rationalistic and sensationalist camps were soon to find themselves at odds, producing the great polemic of the eighteenth century. Ultimately, as the century closed, the two schools of thought would coincide, with rhetoric including both raison and leg passions, since the former demands and stimulates the latter. The rightness of the theory and the effective ness of the practice would be tested, a3 in the ancient days of rhetoric's roots, in the forum: the Revolution. And the defense of passion against reason moved on to an entirely new context, that of the Romantic Revolt.^ The Anti-Ciceronian Movement in Italy The anti-Ciceronian movement in Italy was not as consistent as the parallel movement in France. let in Italy the new "plain" style made remarkable inroads, even if one hesitates to apply the term "plain" to any aspect of Italian baroque—except for much of Tuscan prose, particu larly of the scientific variety, eminently represented by Galileo, who 2 is usually regarded as an exception to prevailing trends. Some theorists could s till echo the traditional formulae, as when Francesco Panigarola,^ in his £L Predicatore (1609), submitted that ^Scaglione, op. cit., pp. 233-234, 282. ^loc. cit-, pp. 282-283. 3ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 "the composition will be deemed magnificent whenever it displays long members, whenever i t i s periodic, • • • whenever, in short, one has taken the pains to arrange every word, however unimportant, like pawns on a chess board." However the critical mind of Traiano Boccalini (1556- 1613) was more responsive to changing tastes; he offered Idpsius as a model.^ The most articulate indictment of the advancing vogue of coupe style in the whole century is the Dell1 arte latorica (1636) of Agostino Mascardi (1591-164.0). Note the early date at which this partisan of a moderate Ciceronian!sm attempts to stem a trend he despises and fears as equally unpalatable to him and popular to so many. The study is the result of a very thorough and learned review of all the relevant writers and literature from antiquity, especially Aristotle, Cicero, Dionysius, Demetrius, Hermogenes, Seneca, and Quintilian, and is a discussion of the overwhelming significance of word arrangement. In order to defend his ideal of a moderate and flexible form of elevated style, the theorist vigorously attacks the chopped-up style which some, he avers, attributed 2 to the imitation of Pierre Mathieu, a "most unworthy" French historian. Mascardi attributes three faults to. the style coupe or hache (he calls it the dicltura spezzata): the clauses are too curt for clarity, the conjunctions too scarce for proper linkage, the rhythm too truncated for satisfaction of the ear. Mascardi claims that brevity is really an unfair misnomer for this style; what is actually happening, he says, is ^loc. cit., pp. 283-284. 2loc. cit., pp. 284-285. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 that necessary linguistic elements are dropped even while an unbearable mass of irrelevant material is heaped together. Prolixity rather than conciseness results.^ The curt or "Tacitean" style found its radical hero in Virgilio Malvezzi (1595-1654), the actual target of Mascardi's demurrers. La Mothe Le Vayer^ singled him out as the chief exponent of a “style trop concls, trop entrecoupe" which resembled "le parler d'un asthmatlque," with its characteristic "contrepointes dont la pluspart sont fondees sur un jeu de paroles qui n'a rien de serieux." However, in Italy Lancellotti^ had praised Malvezzi as early as 1636 as “perhaps" the inventor of a new mode of "Senecan compositive texture." More than a style, Malvezzi's procedure was an obsessive mannerism to the extent that the author remained incapable of a continuous, or ganically structured discourse* Yet his very excesses were symptomatic of a trend. The painstaking search for the "quintessence" of the object at hand, to be rendered through the mode of expression, similarly in spired such devotees of conciseness and of the laconic conceit as Manzini and Peregrin! or Grecian and Quevedo.^ Malvezzi1s anti-Ciceronianism is evident in his defense of "obscu rity" in Tacitus. He declares** that its very obscurity imparts to the ^loc. cit., pp. 286-287. 2ib id . 3ib id . 4-loc. C it., p. 288* 5ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 reader the same pleasure deriving from metaphor, inasmuch as it challenges him to integrate the apparent gaps in the sentence by intervening with his own wit* Tacitus, together with Sallust, also provided examples to Famiano Strada, the teacher of B artoli and Pallavicino. In a shrewd analogy to musical practices of the time, he underlined the new vogue of cointea, sharply worded sentences, asymmetrically arranged.^ Pallavicino2 in 1649 singled out Sallust as the "master of the loose style," <&£ dlsclolto. opposed to Virgil’s and Horace’s d&£ legato. He then defined his search for an "open style, not inane and languid in subject matter, but full of substance, wit and energy. The one who selects his topics with polished care and then treats them in the plainest manner available, writes plainly and well (cum laude p l a n u s ) Else where he supported this by explicit references to ellipsis as the gram matical foundation of significant brevity. In Raimondi's^ judgement, Pallavicino marked the transition "from the Senechism of conceit to the philosophical discourse, from curt to plain style, from the prose of wit to that of the method," Thus the theoretical recognition of the new style was gaining ground. Shortly after the middle of the century the fashion of once unorthodox writers had clearly imposed itself. Pallavicino1^ could then note that "the more obscure authors, such as Tacitus, Persius, and Dante, are read ^loc. cit., p. 289* 2ib id . ^loc. cit., pp. 289-290. ^loc. cit., p. 291. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 more than others with a special enjoyment, at least by those who can understand them.” The focus of attention in the eighteenth century in Italy, as in France, shifted from matters of sentence structure to problems of word order. However, the Italian debate differed from the French in one im portant respect: whereas the nature of the debate in France became theoretical and abstract, in Italy it concerned itself with what writers should actually do, in practice, as writers. Direct order appeared to them, generally speaking, as something opposed to the rhetorical tradi tion which they had acquired in their literary habits. Direct order appeared desirable because i t was more natural, while their prevailing habits were artificial, let the objection was heard that actual expres sion does need inversion for its psychological, pathetic, and aesthetic value. Nevertheless the critique of periodicity and of inverted order became the supporting argument for a broader attack on the Latinized patterns of the linguistic and stylistic tradition, and the rallying 1 point for the partisans of modernity. On a deeper level, i t was a sign of the unwillingness to yield to the rationalistic approach of France, a movement of resistance which de facto corresponded to the upholding of the rights of the imagination that was also taking place within the French sensualist school. Giovanni Battista Vico2 (1668-1744),for example, opposed all forms of rational istic and intellectualistie interpretation of linguistic phenomena. ^loc. c it., pp. 292-294* 2loc. c it., pp. 295-296. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 2 This stance caused him to fight Cartesianism in the light of his far- reaching discovery of the intuitive, imaginative, sensualistic, and emotional foundations of language as expression. This position was an isolated one, yet it is a position echoed in part again and again during his century. Regardless of the reservations of some commentators, however, gram matical speculation in Italy was eventually affected by the gradual dis placement of traditional empiricism by the new rationalistic approach, as was the rest of the Continent. Since we have already discussed the thrust of that movement in France, mention will be made of only a few Italian writers who reflected the trend. Giovanni Barba’s Dell'arte e del metodo delle lingue (1734), P ier Jacopo M artello’s Commentario (1710) and I1 vero parigino Italians (1718), Count Francesco Algorotti’s Saggio sonra la rimn. (1752), and the works of Giuseppe Baretti, the Caffe journal (1764-1766) of Alessandro and Pietro Verrl and Gesare Beccaria, and f i n a l l y Saverio Bettinelli's H Risorgjmento d ’ I ta lia (1 7 7 3 ) con tinued the approach first inaugurated by Scaliger in 1540 in a linear -j movement destined to bear its conclusive results at Port Royal. The influence of French writers such as Condillac after the middle of the century cannot be overestimated, especially on the writers of the Caffe. Indeed, the entire context of late century sensualistic writing, from Condillac in France to Melchiorre Cesarotti in Italy, can serve as an adequate demonstration of the way Romantic a ttitu d e s and ideas emerged 2 from eighteenth-century sensationalism. ^loc. cit., pp. 296-308. *\Loc. c it., pp. 307-309. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 Summary Stylistic typology is fraught with dangers, especially that of generalization, and care has been taken to avoid designating particular trends as "baroque" or "classic." Nonetheless, here are several popular schemes for classifying the movement of literary thought between the Middle Ages and 1800. Hamilton,^ for example, envisages three stages or periods in the stylistic development of England that begin around 1575 and last until the end of the following century. 1. "In prose, Ciceronian im itation and Euphuism, d ifferin g in structure but alike in the emphasis on VERBAL qualities. "In poetry, the elaborate, flo rid harmonies and ornamen tation associated with Spenser, and like its contemporary prose, prompted by a desire to make English a fit vehicle for literary expression. 2. "In prose, the various forms of Senecan style (curt, ob scure, loose, etc.) which cultivate wit but primarily for the sake of thought or ’point.* "In poetry, first metaphysical and later antithetic wit, where again the poetry resembles the prose in seeming to have been partly dictated by a desire to make words a more direct expression of thought. 3. "In both poetry and prose, an emphasis on simplicity, clarity, intelligibility, propriety, naturalness, refinement, ease, etc." These changes, according to Hamilton, may be seen as successive stages in a cyclical process of action and reaction, in which the Romantic movement was to be the next stage: the metaphysicals and Senecans revolt ed against Elizabethan verbalism, the neo-classicists against metaphysi cal extravagance, the Romantics against neo-classic aridity, the reaction in each case being the tag end of the former stage which has lost its 1Scaglione, op. c it., p. 178, citing K.G. Hamilton, The Two Harmonies. (Oxford, 1963), 6-7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 initial inspiration. This at least is the conventional explanation ac cepted by literary historians. Even though starting from the boundaries of Engli«h literature, this scheme shows an obvious analogy with the schemas which every other national lite ra tu re would c a ll fo r with due regard for its own peculiarities."' Croll2 views the period as a continuous development of Atticism which begins with Muret and Lipsius and anti-Giceronian trends in the humanist movement, through loose and coupe styles to its culmination in the plain style of the late seventeenth century. The beginnings of the Attic movement are to be found in Stoicism, an intuition!st theory of language and expression, and it found fulfillment through the rationalist heritage of Carte si anism in the course of Classicism and Enlightenment. Scaglione^ states that "If it is true that, in a sense, baroque consists of an exasperated complication of the formal elements, it is equal ly true, on the other hand, that the same phenomena can Also be traced to an actual preoccupation with substance. Ramism, for exanple, did contribute to that aspect of baroque which can be labeled as positive, naturalistic, or 'A ttic.1 By the shifting to dialectic of traditionally rhetorical material, rhetoric penetrated dialectic* but the perspective became muted, since the aim was now truth rather than effectiveness, and i t was now assumed th a t correct method meant methods £& nature. This method stood for a pattern of mental operations conforming to the order of objective outside reality (adaption of mind to the re a l). The NATURE OF THINGS became the c rite r* ion for the natural order of argumentation and reasoning, 1ib id . 2See Croll, Morris W., "Attic Prose in the Seventeenth Century," Style. Rhetoric, and Rhvthm. Edited by J* Max Patrick and Robert 0. Evans, with John M. Wallace and R.J. Schoeck. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966. %caglione, op. cit., pp. 162-163. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 125 which is, on principle, unique, since the order of nature is presumably unique, "This vindication of the dialectical function of persua sive argument, as against the merely literary or artistic notion of omatufl. seems to underlie many a text in the evolution of the seventeenth-century revolt against Cicero nian! sm and, more generally, formalism." Hauser proposes a drastic revision in the basic terminology of the entire period from the Renaissance through the Baroque, and argues for a sharp d istin c tio n between Mannerism (roughly 1520-1650) and Baroque proper, which in his mind seems to become a rather secondary, more limited movement than traditionally postulated. He states that the concept of the baroque with which scholars usually work is inadequate to explain mannerist phenomena. "Its essential characteristics are generally taken to be its subjectivism, immoderation, and exuberance, thus leaving out of account the fundamental factor, which is that it is an emotionally determined artistic trend appealing to broader sections of the publio, while mannerism is essentially an intellectually and socially exclusive spiritual movement. That is the vital distinction, notwithstanding the transi tional phenomena and the mixtures between the two that are far from being exceptional. Formal peculiarities, even when they are so striking and fundamental, for instance, as that a mannerist work is a juxtaposition of relatively independent motives and to an extent preserves its atomised structure, while in a baroque work a unifying principle always prevails, everything is aimed at producing a uniform effect, and con sequently everything is subjected to a dominant accent, are merely of secondary importance in comparison with the pre dominance of an intellectual attitude in the one and an emo tional attitude in the other. More or less all the charac te r i s t i c s of mannerism depend on the fa c t th a t i t i s a more sophisticated, relective, broken, style saturated with cul tural experiences, while the baroque represents a return to the natural and instinctual, and in that sense to the normal, after the extravagances and exaggerations of the immediately preceding period. • . • The essential factor in differenti ating between the two styles, that on which special emphasis 1 Hauser, Arnold, Mannerism: The C risis of £he Renaissance and Origin o f Modem A rt. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965, I , 274- 275. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 must be laid in comparing them, is the elimination of the paradoxical, the complicated, and the sophisticated, that is to say, of the formal peculiarities that followed from the intellectual and abstract nature of the mannerist a r tis tic purpose*H This approach to basic styles resolves some thorny, central prob lems in understanding the evolution of stylistic modes, not only in literature, but also, as we shall see, in music* Rowland^ states that "such terms as Renaissance, Mannersim, and Baroque can be seen as s ig nifying certain emotional predispositions, a mood common to an age which results in similar artistic experiences." Style is the manner in which those experiences are expressed. Thus in tracing the history of literary style and rhetorical thought, we see first a trend towards imitation of classical models and an exal tation of rhetoric in early humanism (Petrarch, Salutati, Bruni, and Valla), followed by the Neoplatonic revival (Cusanus, Ficino, della Mirandola). These humanists laid the foundation for the various trends to come; the empirical study of Latin syntax (Despautere, Linacer) and rationalism (Scaliger, Sanctius, Scioppius)j Ramisra (Vives, Patrizi, Ramus, Talon); mannerism and anti-Ciceronianism (Erasmus, Muret, Lipsius, Malvezzi, Pallavicino). With the publication of Descartes’ works, we can truly say the Baroque has arrived, and at the same time, the seeds were sown which eventually were to flower in Classicism and Enlightenment. Cartesianism flourished at Port Royal (Lancelot, Amauld, Nicole, Pascal), and its 1 Rowland, Daniel B., Mannerism—Style and Mood: An Anatomy o£ Four Works ip Three Art Forms. New Havens Yale University Press, 1964, xi* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 doctrines culminated in the "rationalized passions" of Lany, After Lany, the sensationalist element inherent In Cartesian!sm came Into dominance (Condillac, Cesarotti) and prepared the way for the coming romanticism. It Is to be remembered that every point along this line of develop ment was challenged by traditionally-oriented writers: Cortese, Cardinal Bembo, Mascardi, Minozzi, Bartoll, Orsi, Vico, Branda, Vosslus, Perzonius, Ursinus, de Monte, Vaugelas, and Bouhours, among others; and that areas of stylistic agreement and disagreement among the various schools of thought are by no means clear cut. The literary and rhetorical polemics did progress along the same lines as the culture in general (and more than once provided the impetus for cultural change) which saw the u lti mate ascension of a rational, rhetorically-based "aesthetics." However, aesthetics as an independent concept was just being formulated in the mind of Immanuel Kant, and would ultim ately render rhetoric as a tool of judgement, a tool in use for some 2600 years, obsolete, thus completing the tra n sitio n , begun -400 years e a rlie r, to the modem age. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. RHETORICAL INFLUENCES ON MUSICAL THOUGHT Music in Ancient Greece Having surveyed the course of literary thought up to the modern age, it is now appropriate to discuss how that thought influenced con temporary music theorists. Literary theorists constantly shifted their focus, first supporting rhetoric as an all-encompassing philosophy, later denouncing rhetoric as an unworthy craft of doubtful necessity, then once again reaffirming a meaningful role for rhetoric. Historians variously in te rp re t these movements, depending upon th e ir own orienta tion, as the reactive swings of a pendulum or as the slow, steady march of progress. The perception of music and music theory underwent many of the same changes before they finally began to develop an independent aesthe tic late in the eighteenth century. This was largely because music and the other Mouslc arts were not philosophically equipped to accept an existence unsupported by mathematics at first and later by rhetoric. The relationship of music to literary and rhetorical theory and prac tice is the subject of this chapter; it is a relationship which began in Greece. It is interesting to note that the Greeks kept their literature as a possession, often diminished, but never out of living memory, from Homer to the fall of Constantinople. Their music had not the same good fortune. At least twice within the period of antiquity the tradition was interrupted and the past forgotten. As a rough guide, four stages, 128 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. according to Sterofeld,1 in its history can be distinguished: 1. Of archaic music, from the eighth century B.C. to the late sixth, much was no doubt superceded and discarded, but some survived into the second stage. 2* The classical period proper, which may be schematically concluded a t the f a l l of Athens in 404 B.C. Between these two stages, in spite of great changes and innovations, there was no breach of continuity. The true classical tradition, exactly mirrored by Aristophanes in his Frogs of 405 B.C., comprehended both brand-new music and the best o f the old in perpetual rivalry and interplay. 3. From the later fifth century B.C. a new movement challenged the classical conventions and idioms, culminating in the musical revolution of Fhiloxenus (433-380 B.C.) and Timotheus (c. 450-360 B.C.). Talented and intolerant, they repudiated the past and, as Plato saw, swept away the old standards of judgement. Aristoxenus (fl. 4th century B.C.), the great professor of music, observed about 320 B.C. that few musicians now had ever heard of the classical styles or could master their tonal ity. The two revolutionaries became classics in their turn, unrivaled in popular taste until, during the second century B.C., their influence receded and died out. 4. Of the music of later antiquity little is known except that it had ceased to be a fine art and had become a background concomitant of shows, mimes, ceremonies, processions, and banquets. Music was a mere 1 Stem feld, F.W., ed ito r, Music from the Middle Ages £0 £he Renais sance. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973, 29. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 TMmifll skill, a low occupation in the social order, no longer a matter for serious discussion. Consequently, almost nothing was written of its nature during this long period. From the extant musical fragments, how ever, it can be inferred that a diatonic note-series had superceded the oaromatic of stage three, interposing another break with the past. The causes of this decline of music can be traced. In fifth-century Athens music was essential to a gentleman's education, and the theatre had been the school of the illiterate poor. But Athens had fallen in A04 B.C. Defeat was followed by revolution and impoverishment. The masses were captured by the showmanship of the new virtuosi, Fhiloxenus and Timotheus. Military and political failure was widely blamed on wrong education, especially in music. In victorlus Sparta (it was argued) gentlemen listen but do not perform; the same was true in Macedonia. A rising middle class now associated practical music with professionals, •j who were normally not citizens but aliens. During the fourth century a new academic ladder was constructed for the citizen. Aristotle,2 arguing the current question whether music, like cookery, could be judged by the consumer, or needed practice, plead ed that a little practice was not vulgarizing unless citizens learned the "professional instruments;" but he too thought that fifth-century Athen ians had overdone i t . Music was reduced to three (and la te r to two) years of the child's elementary education. The adult musical criticism of Aristophanes' fifth-century Athens never returned; the citizen dropped ^loc. c i t ., pp. 32-33* 2ibid., citing Aristotle, Politics. 1339a-1342b. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. out of the chorus; presently the poet stopped composing h is own music. On the other hand, the professional musician, once capable of great poetry, wrote bad verse or none* His technique was high and drew enthu siastic crowds, but he sank to the level of a mere entertainer, depised fo r liv in g on "manual work." This was the parting of the ways fo r music and le tte rs.^ It waB this connection between music and poetry that was laterlto consume the Renaissance thinker, yet in ancient Greece i t was a very natural connection* This connection is inherent within the Greek language itself, as a result of the fact that the language possesses particular musical ch aracteristics bound closely to Greek rhythm* The syllables themselves were the rhythmic material from which verse rhythms were for mulated. Those small sy llables, e ith er long or short, originate not by means of abstract rhythmic division, but from the language itself, and the individual syllables have a definite duration in the Greek language. The character of each syllable is an objective feature; they have nothing to do with expression or meaning. Again, this feature of the language was to Influence Italian versification in the Renaissance, transmitted through the works of St. Augustine in the Middle Ages. When practical music ceased to count among the liberal arts, so- called "harmonics" became predominant. Often called by the name mousikS or musica. it was a different subject, taught at a later stage of the 1ib id . 2Georgiades, Thrasybulos, Greek Music. Verse and Dance* Translated by Erwin Benedikt and Marie Louise Martinez. New York: Merlin Press, n.d., 52-55. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 132 student*8 curriculum. It had no connection with harmonics or harmony in the modem sense; i t meant tuning, but the im plications were much wider. It had begun with Pythagoras (fl. c. 532 B.C.) in the sixth century B.C., not as a theory of musical art but as an inquiry into the nature of the universe. After discovering the relation between matter and numbers expressed by the numerical ratios of intervals on a stretched string, they took harmonics as a clue to the general structure of the cosmos. This was still Ptolemy's goal in the second century A.D. The independent value of harmonic science was unquestioned until the Renais sance; it was enshrined in the auadrivium of mathematical arts. By its own criteria it could be good or bad, but, with one exception, its con- cam was not the art of music. The exception was Aristoxenus. He knew the musical classics, and in fourth-century Athens he learned from A ristotle's inductive method to analyse music from real experience. He started with the realistic principle of the voice in free melodic motion, irreducible to fixed numerical terms. To him, the ear was the important factor in judging consonance and dissonance; his successors' awe of numbers, however, caused them to revert to Pythagorean equations, in particular, a linear measure ment by units which Aristoxenus himself had rejected. However, he stood alone, and the doctrine known to Ptolemy as "Aristoxenian" was much cor- 2 rupted by the accretions of the theoretical harmonists. The Western world inherited from the Greeks, then, a culture com- ^Stem feld, op. c i t . , pp. 33-34* 2ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. prising two different traditions of musical study: music in connection with poetry, the two inseparable; and music related not to literature but to mathematics, being one of the four mathematical disciplines (all having a common basis in ratio and proportion) which precede the study of philosophy. This was a part of the cycle of studies considered the minimum of liberal training for the average free man. In the great philosophical systems, the mathematical studies were required prior to the study of supreme wisdom—d ia le c tic with Plato, metaphysics with Aristotle. And in the mathematical group, music, as an expression of universal harmony, played a dominating role. The real musician for the Greeks was the philosopher, not the professional singer or instrumental is t.^ Tie Roman system of education was modeled upon that of the Greeks, with the liberal arts the basis of learning for the Roman free man. But it was the Greek rhetorical schools rather than the schools of philosophy which the practical Romans, having no philosophical tradition of their own, used as a pattern. Rhetoric was the basis of the education of the Roman citizen, as we have seen, and music was an important part of that rhetorical training. Quintilian^ advocated a knowledge of music as neces sary for effective oratory, and he urged more strongly the importance of theoretical musical knowledge, especially "the knowledge of the principles ^Hence Boethius' definition of a musician, often cited by medieval theorists: "Is vero est musicus, qui ratione perpensa canendi scientiam non servito operis sed imperio speculationis adsumpsit." See Godofredus Friedlein, editor, BoffifcU Biilsa ouinque. Idpsiae, 1867, 224. 2Carpenter, Nan Cooke, Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Univer s i t ie s . Norman, Oklahoma: U niversity of Oklahoma Press, 1958, 7-9. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 134 of music, which have power to excite or assuage the emotions of mankind." The Romans received the legacy of the already floundering Greek art, and at the same time, transformed their own tonal art into a utilitarian scheme which declined to the same extent as Roman life. With the fall of the Empire, the once vigorous music of Antiquity not only lost its meaning, but was also menaced by total extinction. Christianity, and particularly Byzantium, saved music from such a fate. The transition to the musical art of the Middle Ages was carried out not by the peoples, nor by the temporal governing powers, but by the new religion, which sought a conscious return to the ethical principles involved in the 1 performance of divine service. Musical Thought in the Middle Ages The Church that saved music was itself being influenced by many outside sources. Goldron^ points out th a t "Christianity took its ethics from Judea, its theology from Greece, and its organization from Rome. In the shaping of Christian music these three sources were no less active. The fact that many melodies were taken over from the syna gogue Is lo g ical enough, fo r the synagogue constituted the pattern on which the Church was organizing i ts e l f . Yet the f i r s t te x ts which the Fathers of the Church devoted to music reveal traces of Pythagoras and Plato rather than Jewish influence. To the Greek mind, we should remember, musio was part and parcel of a mathematical philosophy. Finally, when it came to the integration of so many different elements, Rome was the predominant influence." Despite the Roman influences, however, the early Christians shielded 1Sendrey, op. cit., p. 446. 2 Goldron, Romain, Byzantine and Medieval Music. New York: H.S. Stuttman Company, 1968, 9. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 themself*s from any vestige of decadent Roman society, including its music, which was thought by many people to be incompatible with true faith. As late as the fifth century, there were those who thought as Bruno Cartbuss "God does not like music for itself; He has no more need of it than He has of human sacrifice. . . . If He allows us to sing, or desires us to sing, it is out of pity for Man1s frailty and his predi lection for childish things." likewise in the second century Tertulian2 was writing: "Musical concerts with viol and lute belong to Apollo, to the Muses, to Minerva and Mercury, who invented them; ye who are Chris tians, hate and abhor these things whose very authors themselves must be the object of loathing and aversion." The doubt and uncertainty into which more narrow-minded souls were plunged by this problem of music in worship is evidenced by an oft-quoted text from St. Augustine's^ Confessions: "Sometimes, because I am ever on the watch for a snare of some kind, I am falsely led into exaggerated severity; and then all I want is to shield the ears of all Christians, and mine also, from all sound of those sweet tunes which accompany the Psalms of David • • • ; and y et, when I re member how I wept in the early days of my conversion as I liste n ed to the songs of the Church, and when I remember too how I am now moved not by the song but by what i t ex presses • • • then I can appreciate anew the value of such an institution. I am therefore inclined to look favorably on the maintenance of this custom, though I do not claim to s e ttle the m atter; y et i t would seem th a t through the joys of hearing, the fainting soul can grow firmer in p ie ty ." •j loc. cit., p. 20. 2ib id . 3loc, cit., p. 21. See also Strunk, Oliver, editor, Source Readings i a Music H istory. New York: W.W. Norton, 1950, 74» Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 Onr does not find the same reservation in texts from the Eastern Empire. The transfer of Constantine's capital to Byzantium proved to be of great historical importance. In Byzantium, better than in decadent Rome, the Greek tradition could merge into the new world of Christian ideas. Eastern authors, nurtured on Greek philosophy, managed to in corporate the doctrines of Jythagoras and the disciples of Plato into the religion of Christ most successfully. Important in this connection is a treatise by Denis, Bishop of Athens, who was martyred in the first century, which sheds considerable light on the concepts of Byzantium. In this same century, St. Ignatius of Antioch is supposed to have had a vision of angelic choruses praising God, singing alternately, and he lost no time in putting this vision into effect in his church.^ It was almost certainly the example of Byzantium th a t induced the Latin Fathers to relax to some extent their primitive and hostile attitude toward music later in history. Just as St. Augustine and Boethius were a two-part bridge from the ancient world to that of the Middle Ages philosophically, so they were musically as well. Waite tells us that Augustine was important pri marily for his transference of a theory of rhythm based upon metrics to the modal theorists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He suggests that the De musica. written in Africa around 388, provided the Notre Dame composers with the necessary system for the re-establishment of precise 1ibid. 2Waite, William G., The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony: Its Theory and P ractice. New Haven: Yale U niversity Press, 1954-, 29. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 rhythmic values: "The important doctrine of rhythms contained in the De Muaica has received scant attention from garanmarlans and musicclc= gists. In general, the first five hooks have been mistaken for a trea tis e on m etrics." Americo^ in s is ts th a t "the Augustinian treatise is not a treatise on metrics but fundamentally a treatise on rhythm understood as the element common to all musical arts and examined in the particular light of poetry. . . . It is a true treatise on rhythm based upon that material most accessible to everyone, that is upon the word, which is not considered as such, but simply as sound and motion; so that whatever is said about this, or better, the laws that are derived from this or which are applied to it are applicable to every sort of motion that has the same dimensions of motion as syllables or words." More than once in the De musics Augustine makes a clear distinction between the function of the musician, who treats the quantities of words as components of rhythm, and the grammarian, who simply discusses the quantities of syllables as they have been handed down by authority. The art of metrics, which is a part of grammar, is for Augustine only a pre paratory discipline for the higher arts of number, music, geometry, and astronomy, but at the same time the science of music presupposes a know ledge of the quantities of syllables as taught by the granmarians. The principles of the Augustinian system are applicable to any sort of motion, be it poetry, music, the dance, or in the motion of objects.^ Waite^ concludes that "although none of the modal th e o rists mention the Dg, muslca. 1ibid., citing Americo, Franco, £1 "Dg, Musica" d£ S. Agostino. (Torino, 1929), p. 40, 45. 2loc. cit., pp. 30, 35. ^loc. cit., pp. 35-37. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 133 the resemblance of the modal system to the Augustinian doc trine is too striking to be ignored. One mast keep in mind that the thirteenth-century treatises are dealing specifically with musica practice and to a large degree they ignore the theoretical side of music which occupied so large a part of earlier treatises. Nevertheless there is evidence that the I& musica was known and utilized by theorists and scholars from the earliest times." Boethius had, perhaps, the greatest influence upon the music of the Middle Ages through his philosophical and mathematical treatise Da lnstitutione musica. Consisting of five books, it furnished manuals for the auadrivium of the schools, and it long remained a textbook in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.^ The treatise, the most ex tensive of the Latin writings upon music, depends in part on the woric of Ptolemy, though it is doubtful if Boethius was familiar with the Greek text. Either his understanding of his authorities or the medieval theorists' understanding of him or possibly both were defective, and his 2 work was thus the source o f some confusion. V aliant and clumsy e ffo rts were made by the writers of the ninth and tenth centuries to reconcile past theory and actual practice (e.g. in the nomenclature of the modes), but they only resulted in much confusion both at the time and s in c e .^ Both the good and the bad of all Greek thought on music, however, was accepted a t face value because o f the prestige o f Boethius' name, and 1 Encyclopaedia Britaimloa. 1950 ed., s.v. "Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus." 2 Grove's Dictionary of Music aa£ Musicians, fifth ed., s.v. "Boethius," by R.P. Winnington-Ingram. ^Grove's Dictionary o f Music and Musicians, f i f th e d ., s.v . "Modes," by R.P. Winnington-Ingram. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission this influence was not shaken until the time of Galileo.1 Boethius was perpetuated by a number of w riters, including Aurelian (fl. c. 843). His Musica dlgdpHna perpetuated alB O the concept of the seven liberal arts and the Greek aesthetics of emotion and music. ^ Standing at the end of the Middle Ages is Jacques de Liegs (Jacobus de Leodio, c. 1270- ?). His Speoulum muslcae is an encyclopedic compen dium of musical knowledge with a rich background of mathematics, philo sophy, and theological materiel, all integral to the understanding of the main subject matter, consonantia as musica sonara. In keeping with the universalism both in philosophy and pedagogy, Jacobus, like all other medieval scholars, thought it his task to mirror (thus Speculum) all reality in his written works, so that by the end of the Middle Ages it is impossible to grasp medieval thought independently of its culture, philosophy, and theology. In perpetuating Boethius, the Speculum be came the most important and extensive musical treatise of the late Middle Ages.^ 1 Boethius reigned until Galileo Galilei pointed out the mathemati cal errors—copied verbatim in many of the medieval musical treatises— in Boethius' account of Fythagoras and the hammers. See Williams, G.F. Abby, A Short H istorical Account of tijg, Degrees in Music a t Oxford and Cambridge. London and New York; 1894, 23: "So unquestioned was the authority of Boethius all through the Middle Ages, and so averse were students to anything like practical experiments, that Galileo was perhaps the first to point out that the notes would vary according to the size of the anvil, not that of the hammer, and that, in addition-to this, Boethius gives the proportions of the sizes of the intervals wrongly." 2See Aurelian of Rdome, 2&e Discipline of Music. Translated by Joseph Ponte. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music Press, 1968. Pp. 64. ^Smith, Joseph F ., Jacobi Leodiensls Speculum Musicae. New York* Institute of Medieval Music, 1966, 33, 129. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 0 Medieval th e o rists were re a lly philosophers; knowing the "theory" separated the muslcuB from the cantor or from the citharlst. From our present-day viewpoint the laudable attempt to think out musical practice and theory went too far; it became metaphysical and ended up as theory for the sake of theory, known, as Jacobus^ himself complains, only to the philosopher. As Smith points out, Jacobus stands as a tragic figure in the midst of the Ars Nova of musical practice with his magnificent tomes on the Ars Anti qua. For him, musical practice was still subject to the philo sophical theory of medieval art, particularly the theory of numerical proportionality which was the basis for musical consonance. This became the radical difference between the Old Art and the New. The Ars Antique sought its final vindication in the abstractions of medieval philosophy, whereas the musician of the Ars Nova sought the meaning of music in the musical practice itself. Mimesis In the Renaissance, musical conception sprang from two sources: sonority and the word. There is nc higher praise for Josquin in his own time than that he composed according to the meaning and the accent of the words, and in numerous works of the Josquin-LaRue group the d is tr i bution of the syllables is based almost e n tire ly on principles of meaning fu l declamation, summarized in 1559 by Zarlino in his ten famous ru les U bid. 2loc. cit., pp. xiii-xvi. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 141 for text-underlaying.1 The source of this interest in words is to be found in the concept of imitation. With humanism* the comnon goal of the arts became the imitation of man’s actions and passions. The term wiimpwia formulated the relationship that exists between art and nature* that is* between the work of art as res facta and its model taken from reality.^ Nicolo Vicentino’s^ declaration of 1555 might be quoted as the definitive statement of the musicians' aesthetic: "Madrigall o Ganzoni, che nel principio intrarono con alle- grezza nel dire le sue passioni* & poi nel fine saranno piene di mestitia* & di morte, & poi il medesimo verra per contrarioj all'hora sopra tali, il Compositors potra uscire fuore dell'- Modo & in te rs in un a ltro , perchfe non havera obligo di rispon- dere al tuono* di nissun Choro, ma sar&. solamente obligato a dar l'animo a quale parole* e con 1'Armenia di most rare le sue passioni* quando aspre e quando dolci* & quando alleg re & quando meste, & secondo i l loro suggiettoj & da qui s i cavera la ragione che ogni mal grado* con c attiv a consonanza sopra le parole si potra usare, secondo i loro affettij adunque sopra tali parole si potra comporre ogni sorte de gradi, & di armonia, & andar fuore di Tuono & reggirsi secondo il sug- gietto delle parole volgari." The relation ship between word and sound was the basis fo r mimesis. Ficino related music to poetry through the materials that they employ; he did not dissociate the poetical element (oantus) from the purely musical element (sonus) since both appeal to the ear and comprise melody and rhythm. However, verbal communication still appeared to be the 1Blume, Friedrich, Renaissance Barocroe Music: A Comprehensive Survey. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton. New York: W.W. Norton, 1967, 76. ^LeCoat* Gerard George, "Music and the Rhetoric of the Arts During the Age of Monteverdi." Unpublished doctor’s dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1973, 1-5. ^MacClintock, Carol, Glaches de Wert (1535-1596): lif e and Works. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1966, 190. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 manifestation par excellence of man's nobility. PlaW had said that "when there are no words, it is extremely difficult to perceive the meaning o f harmony or rhythm, or to ascertain what worthy object of 2 imitation is imitated by them." Ficino placed poetry above painting and music because only words could convey specific ideas "bom of the thought process" (ex cogitations mentic)• then, was the means of art. The end of art was threefold* to teach, to please, and to move. These functions were nothing but a transposition of the three offioia oratoris of Latin poetics and rhetoric: "To teach is a duly, to delight an honor, to move a necessity," Cicero^ had affirmed in Bg, Ora tore. However, pleasure, even in its highest form, was given a secondary value, "reduced to the role of a means or instru ment."^ This was an outlook that remained constant until the turn of the eighteenth century. For the humanists as for the ancients, the most noble pursuit of the artist was the purification (catharsis) of the audience, obtained by an artificial stirring of the emotions of pity and fear. The idea of stirring the emotions was linked not only to the desire to persuade, then, but also to that of provoking a salutary reaction on the part of the listener. This Aristotelian concept of catharsis survived well "*LeCoat, op. c it,, pp. 12-13, ^loc. cit,, p. 33* ^loc. cit., pp. 44-45. 4lbid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission U 3 Into the seventeenth century and has echos in Racine, Mersenne, and 1 C orneille. The theory of the Renaissance grew out of the need to rationally "explain" and ncodify" the means of mimes* a and the subsequent emotional reactions, reactions only little understood. As KLume2 explains, "the countless regolamenti for the teaching of art, archi tecture and drawing, literature and music, do not only pulse with the life of the Renaissances they are codifications, attempts to males comprehensible the invading fulness of sen sual experience. There is often confusion here. The artists of the Renaissance felt the need to couch in rules their wealth of sensual experience; like the artists and musicians of the twentieth century, they theorized because they felt the solid ground of tradition quaking beneath their feet, and they clung to what was logically and mathematicallt grasp- able to avoid drowning in the ocean of the senses. Hence th e ir need fo r a noira, which i s more "medieval" than "modern" in effect and which makes itself especially strongly felt in music. To this should be added a further motive, the incli nation to "Gelahrtheit" (Gelahrtheit = learnedness), music, for example, still being a scientia. Like the artists of the Baroque, those of the Renaissance liked to consider them selves "scientific" and thus on the same level with the scho lars. This motive behind their endless theoretical reasonings should not be overlooked. It is the same motive that led musicians around 1600 to the doctrine of rhetorical musical figures: they hung the mantle of Gelahrtheit about their shoulders, clothing in the terms of Quintilianlc rhetoric what they had in practice long been doing." Thus the history of music theory in this period was the development of a musical rhetoric, a theory of expression based on traditional logic and rhetoric."* Gurtius^ recalls that "in the seventeenth and eighteenth "*loc. c it# , pp. 45-47# 2Blume, op. c i t . , pp. 6-7. ^Miriam Joseph, Sister, Rhetoric Shakespeare’s Time: Literary Theory of Renaissance Europe. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 19&T3. ^LeCoat, op. cit., p. 32. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144- centuries, rhetoric was still an indlspensible branch of learning.11 And it was the threefold division of rhetoric which was to serve as a basis for the elaboration of the artistic "discourse," that is, inventio. cfla- 1 pogitio. and elocutlo. The Humanist Ideal in Music Theoiy It has been pointed out that the culture of the Renaissance and Baroque was basically a rhetorical culture; the recognition of the dif ference between that culture and our own is essential, for it points up * O the fundamental aesthetic principle of the age. Wangerxnee explains that "for the man of today, something is characterized as a work of art to the extent that it invites aesthetic perception, that it can take place in the universe of forms as well as in the evolution of history. . . . Ever since music became conscious of its own past, that paBt con demns both the present and the future. And yet, this is a recent atti tude which goes back no further than the Romantic nineteenth century." He continues:^ "For the Renaissance, music was much more a craft than an art in our sense. Even when it began to be recognized as an art, it was not as a pure art remote from its real social responsibilities but rather as something functional, an acoustical decor for daily living. It was precisely be cause music was so intimately linked with life, with tastes and sentiments, with fashions, that it was so rigorously 1loc. cit., p. 34. 2Wangermee, Robert, Flemish Music and. Society t&e Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. English version by Robert Erich Wolf. New Yorks Frederick A. Praeger, 1968, 68. 3ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. U 5 tied to the present. Whether religious or secular, whether intended for edification or diversion, raisic was constantly transformed to -conform to the spiritual and cultural evolu tion of the social group it aimed to satisfy. "When a work ceased to please because i t was no longer in tune with the psychological needs of a society which had changed, i t quite simply was no longer performed. I t was relegated to dusty archives or outrightly tom up and thrown away, and i t s composer was soon forgotten. Even musicians themselves knew no more of the past than the works of those masters immediately preceding them whose language they adopted and then transformed without any revolutionary intent, acting within the most natural of dialectical processes.” For example, Johannes Tinctoris (1436-1511), the most eminent theo rist of his time, had little real acquaintance with the paBt history of music. For him, music began with Dufay, and Binchois, Dunstable, Regis, Ockeghem, Busnois, and Caron are mentioned. Tinctoris completely ignores Machaut, and though liv in g in Ita ly seems not to bs aware of Landino o r Ciconia. Yet he was one of the most learned musicians of his time, and his theoretical works are full of contemporary examples from the best sources. Of the past he knew only the writings of the theorists and *1 nothing at all of the compositions themselves. In addition to the ignorance of an immediate musical past, the hu manists of the Renaissance knew only a few ancient sources dealing with music and its effects. The practice of ancient music was lost, and a description of artistic effects on passions and character existed mainly in the surviving oratorical and poetical treatises and in traditional 2 stories of the miraculous power of music to affect passions. One of the wiflln sources from which musicians of the Renaissance drew their ^loc. cit., pp. 67-68. 2Sadowsky, op. c i t . , p. 97. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 information on music of classical antiquity was the Eisagoge of Cleonldes (dates unknown), translated Into Latin by Georgius Valla and published as early as 1497. The Eisagoge is based primarily on Aristoxenus, and is a source of information on the three genera of ancient music: the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic . 1 However, most important sources of our knowledge of ancient music were not discovered u n til a fte r about 1630. 2 Thus, fo r Wangermee,^ the notion th a t Renaissance meant no more than a revival of classical ideals is mistaken. "The fact is that the idea of a rebirth of music appeared as early as the fifteenth century and according to a very simple schema: music had known its Golden Age in Antiquity either with the pagan philosophers or with the Fathers of the Church, after which it lapsed into decadence and lay fallow for many ignorant centuries until, in recent times, it had regained its original splendor. For the men of the fifteenth century and part of the sixteenth, this renewal had nothing to do with an imitation of Antiquity." Blume^ points out that since early Christendom and the Middle Ages, Antiquity had been invoked at all times, and that the fact that the humanist th eo rists and composers sought to base themselves on Plato and other Greek models does not in itself stamp their work as a product of humanism. Indeed Kristeller^ notes that some influential aspects of Renaissance 1 Strunk, Oliver (ed.), Source Readings is Music History. New York: W.W. Norton, 1950, 34. 2Walker, D.P., "Musical Humanism in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries .'1 Music Review. I I (1941)> 4. ^Wangermde, op. c i t . , pp. 68- 69. 4-Blume, op. c i t . , p. 104* ^Kristeller, op. cit., p. 20. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 humanism are characteristic of the age and not necessarily due to clas sical influences. There is the emphasis on man, on his dignity and privileged place in the universe, which was forcefully expressed by- Petrarch, Manetti, and other humanists. Another characteristic feature is the tendency to express, and to consider worth expressing, the con crete uniqueness of one's feelings, opinions, experiences, and surround ings. This anthropocentric view could not but challenge the emphasis given to speculation in the Middle Ages. Significantly, it was the humanist-philosophers of the Neoplatonic school, such as Nicholas of Ousa, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirsndola—the most "musically oriented"--who were the first to assign music new goals and define for her new means of action. It was, nonetheless, the Italian theorists and composers who took the initiative role in the development of a humanistic ideal which was taken to be a model throughout Europe. The most influential of these was Franchinus Gafurlus (1451-1522), whose Practice musicae of 1496 circulated the length and breadth of Europe. Leading theorists of di verse national origins—including the German Ornithoparcus and his English translator, the lutenist John Dowland, Galliculus and Ustenius of Leipzig, the Swiss humanist Glarean, Aaron and Zarlino of Italy, Jacques LeFevre of Prance, and even the Hungarian Monetarius—cited, paraphrased, or plagiarized text and music from the pages of GafurLus* iLeCoat, op. cit., p. 11. 2loc. cit., p. iv. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 1 A student of the Flemish Johannes Gutentag (Bonadies), who studied under the humanist Vittorino da Feltre in Mantua, Gafurius was provided with a firm foundation in Flemish musical doctrine and an early apprecia tion of Boethius, referred to gratefully in several of Gafurius 1 works. His studies took him to Mantua, Verona, Genoa, Naples, M ontcelli, and Bergamo, assimilating the traditional medieval doctrines as well as the available sources referring to the music of antiquity. His first work was the Theoricum onus musicae discinlinae O 48O), the f i r s t book printed 2 before 1500 to treat in broad dimensions the study of music theory. The Mantuan period (1474-14-76) was the most crucial in his develop ment as a humanist. In Mantua, Gafurius learned those classical values which were to color his thinking and work as a theorist, as Young^ re lates, "that the value of a practical musician lay in proportion to his grounding and in te g rity as a speculative musician, th a t reason is supreme over the errant faculties of sense, that music has an ethical purpose to educate higher facilities and to mollify men's minds. In Mantua he em braced the thesis that music is first and foremost a philosophical sci ence and a proper vehicle for abstract speculation." The Practica re flects his attitudes on antiquity; it relies for support, as do all his works, on statements made by or attributed to ancient authorities. His scholarly desire to compile and explain, Ms enthusiasm and respeot fo r 1Gafurius, Franchinus, Practica musicae. Translated and edited by Irwin Young. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969, xv. ^loc. cit., pp. xvi-xvii. 3ibid. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Greek and Reman figures and ideas, and his urge to help bring classical ideas Into living experience again are all the attitudes of a humanist* And like a true humanist, his literary ties were strong. Lancinus Curtius, Lucinus Conagus, and Jacobus Antiquarius, secretary to II Moro, were among his friends in the literati.^ The Practica treats music not as a philosophical or scientific discipline, as in antiquity, but as an art, in a more modern sense. It explains how to read, compose, and play Renaissance compositions* With the exception of the octave, the Practica lay open to examination every interval in the Pythagorean tradition. Gafurius, always a practical musician as well as theorist, realized that in conqposition the logic of theory was often forced to give way to the amenities of sound. Even the perfect fifth was assaulted, and in a discussion of a practice which foreshadowed equal temperament, Gafurius 2 mentions the my the organists tampered with this basic interval by minutely tempering its 3:2 ra tio , Gafurius^ also echoes the humanistic concern for the text: "let the composer of music strive to adapt the melody in its sweetness to the words of the song, so that when the words concern love or a longing for death or some lamentation, he will articulate and arrange doleful sounds so far as he can, as the Venetians are wont to do." He exhaustively explains rhythmic proportion as well, seemingly unmindful of the fact that proportion as a factor in temporal relationships had reached and Hoc. cit., p. xviii. Hoc. cit., pp. xxii-xxiii. Hoc. cit., p. 161. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. passed the zenith of its development. Nevertheless, he was less academ- ic than his Flemish predecessor, Ockeghem, in his treatment of both pro portion and mensuration.^ Dufay, Ockeghem, and Josquln Gafurius* work summarized musical practice of his age, a culminating age in the history of m sic. At the same time it reflects the innovations that would direct the course of early sixteenth-century music, for after 1A50, music became increasingly subtle and sophisticated. The keyword of the new style was harmony, in the sense of a synthesis of varied ma terials in perfect balance and proportion. Out of a vide spectrum of novelties produced in the early fifteenth century, composers selected those most expressive, and then found new ways to combine them into a convincing style. Four-voice texture, the low harmonizing contratenor, rich sonorities, choral timbre—all these techniques, already in use, were combined a fte r 1450 to produce a new ideal of sound. Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400-1474) was the first musician to direct the art into truly new channels. Tinctoris saw in Dufay the dawn of a new era. In the Preface to his Proportionalmusices. Tinctoris^ lists the lineage of music: Jesus Christ, "the greatest musician of them a ll,1* Gregory the Great, S t. Ambrose, S t. Augustine, and Boethius, a ll from ^loc. cit., p. xxiv. 2Crocker, Richard, A History of Musical Style. New York: McGraw- Hill, 1966, 154. ^tfangermee, op. c i t ., pp. 67-69. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 1 5 1 antiquity; of music in the Middle AgeB he mentions only Guido d'Arezzo and Johannes de Murls. Real music for him begins only with Dufay, Binchois, and Dunstable, followed by Ockeghem, Busnois, Regis, and Caron, One of the most striking indications of the change in style around 1450 i s the difference between Dufay's e a rlie r works and h is la te masses. Dufay had w ritten service music fo r the mass alongside h is great cere monial motets in the 1430*s. Toward 1440 he sta rte d to w rite cantus- firmus masses; for example, the Missa Caput and the Missa Se Ja face ay pale. It is after the latter mass that a break occurs in Dufay's style. Into that break may f a l l an early mass by the leading composer of the younger generation, Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1495)* Ockeghem's Missa L 'Homme armS i s a cyclic mass based on what was to be the most famous cantus firmus of the next century. The novelty of Ockeghem's work i s subtle; the difference between i t and a Dufay mass is sometimes only a difference in personal style or taste. It is interesting to compare Ockeghem's mass with the immediately preceding Missa. §e face gy pale. but an even more in terestin g comparison can be made with a mass Dufay wrote during the 1450's, presumably right after the Ockeghem mass on the same cantus firmus; the two L* Homme arm£ masses are closely related, re vealing a keen rivalry between the old master and the energetic young -1 man. According to Hughes, "Ockeghem proceeded to rid musical language of all the subtleties of the previous age and attained 'a noble simplicity unknown to Dufay;' furthermore, music was henceforth to be employed 'in the service of the ideas suggested by its text, by means of a harmonious "•Hughes, Dorn Anselm and Gerald Abraham (e d s.), Ara Nova and the 1300-1540. London* Oxford University Press, 1960, 241* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 fusion of the decorative and expressive elements.This suggests a two-fold division much like the "figures of amplification" and the "figures of affection" division with which later rhetoricians were to -I grapple. Ockeghem's work opened up a whole new range of possibilities, yet it was not until Josquin Des Pres (c. 1450-1521) that the possibilities o were fully realized. Hughes states that Josquin "was the first to satisfy in any degree the Renaissance ideal, whose aim was the expres sion in music of all the moods of a text ('omnium affectus exprimere' as Coclico said); in this he was a worthy forerunner of Lassus." For Josquin, the means to this end was a new treatment of the cantus firmus "*The division of rhetorical devices into "figures of amplification" and "figures of affection" was of greatest interest to English writer's during the second half of the sixteenth century. For example, half of Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence, Contevning the Figures o£ Grammer and Rhetorick (1 5 5 7 )is taken up by two sections at the close, "figures of sentences" and figures of amplification." In the edition of 1593 these two parts have been reshuffled and divided into "figures of affection" and "figures of amplification." Neither classification is entirely consistent. Both serve to illustrate the difficulties which confronted rhetoricians in analyzing the various figures. In particular they were undecided where to place such devices as exclamation, apostrophe, and prosopopela, which depend for their appeal upon arousing the emotions. Although useful for amplification, they were not, as were the figures of thought, based upon the processes of dialectical investigation. In the edition of 1593 Peacham dealt with the figures of affection under four subheadings, "exclamation," "moderation," "consultation," and "permission," and he has broken the figures of amplification into four groups also, "distribution," "description," "comparison," and "collection." A more consistent arrangement might have been to place the figures of "descrip tion" under the heading of affection. At any rate, the general remarks on amplification in the later edition of this work illustrate both the importance which he attached to the means of expounding a theme and also his own efforts to achieve an ornate, copious style. See Schwartz, Joseph, and John A. Rycengan (ed s.), The Province of Rhetoric. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1965, 219-220. ^Hughes, op. c i t . , p. 263. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 in both masses and motets, in whioh the cantus firams tended to disap pear in a maze o f im itatio n , as a ll voices became permeated with the chant subject. Imitation assumed special importance in Josquin1s motets during the same decades that it appeared in his masses, even though the technique itself had antecedents in the imitative duets preceding the entry of the cantus firmus and in the imitation a 2 of chansons, both common in the fifteenth century. The basic problem facing Josquin was to expand and deepen the di mensions of the song motet. This type of motet might use a chant in paraphrase, but not usually as a cantus firmus. Nor was a cantus firmus stru c tu ra lly desirable anymore; while the cantus firmus had been the foundation of large impressive works, Josquin used the technique of imitation as the foundation, to lend a sense of continuity to the motet. An imitative phrase seemed internally more integrated, more consistent; a succession of imitative phrases had something of the logic once pro vided by a cantus firnrus. Imitation was also a more flexible technique; it permitted not only more florid chord progressions, but also more fluid treatment of texture. Indeed, a varied succession of textures, including, but not limited to, imitation, was now the basic shape of the motet.2 This use of imitation and other textures reveals a new subjective approach which may be traced throughout Josquin*s works, a new aesthetic principle in which one of the functions of music was to parallel the 1 Crocker, op. cit., p. 175. 2loc. cit., pp. 172-180. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. rhetoric of the text. One result was a strengthening of the a cappella concept) in which vocal music was not to be supported by instruments but was to be performed by voices alone. This approach also resulted in the idea that a composition could be interpreted, that the notation could not bring out a ll the subtleties contained in the music. This concern for the text was one of the principles to which the name musica reservata was given, and Josquin is credited with taking a major role in creating the new music in which those principles and ideas came to expression,^ Musica Reservata In the ars perfects of the Renaissance, that is, during the genera tions of Josquin and Gombert, two tendencies interpenetrate that will have a great influence in la te r music: one towards a pure music, as 2 Blume states, "poised in the atcnomy of its own beauty of sound and form, serving sensuous enjoyment (a music simply 1 being'), and one to wards a music determined by extraneous ideas and content serving to s tir the in te lle c t and the emotions ('significative' music)." There are three types of expression, according to Blume,3 in this latter trend: firs t, medieval flarnanf.l as (Josquin1 s number and solmisation structures, the art of canon writing, etc.) linked with the presenting of content through musical figures "found" according to the rules of rhetoric; 1 Ulrich, Homer, and Paul Pisk, A History of Music and Musical Style New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963, 128, ^Blurae, op. c it,, p. 112. -*loc. cit., pp. 112-113. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission second, genuine symbols or musical signs that translate word content into tonal figures "emblematically"—for example, the Latin word for "sun," sol, set to the note G, the solmization syllable sol, or nojc or tenebrae represented by blackened notes, and so on; and third, allegory, the key ing of content to music that can be "understood" by the hearer simply from the aural effect—for example, "fall," "plunge," "abyss," and "sin" expressed by descending voices. Bukofzer* regards the introduction of allegorization as the beginning of musica reservata. In 1555 Lasso** made an explicit distinction between musica che & domanda osservata and musica che fosse nalese a tu tti. Another theoretical writer, Sethus Calvisius,^ expressed more clearly what is intended. According to him, "music employs elegant fictions which put the matter before the mind, the eyes, and the ears." According to Haydon,^ musica reservata confirms "the shift in the direction of extrinsic expression," and is indicative of the new ideals of the musici poetici. Adrien Petit Coclico^ (c. 1500-1563) in his Compendium musices (1552) made the distinction between musici mathematiol and the musici poetlci. The former, such as Dufay, Binchois, and Tinctoris, "could not figure out what the true aim of music was": they were merely ^Bukofzer, Manfred F ., "Allegory in Baroque Music." Journal of the Warnurg In s titu te . I l l (1939-1940), 20. 2ibid. 3ibid. 4Haydon, Glen, "On the Problem of Expression in Baroque Music." Journal of ihe Amerloan Musicplpgjcai Society. I l l (1950), 115. ^LeCoat, op. cit., p. 15. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "bickering" about numbers. The latter were those who, after Josquin, deliberately tried "to apply to the due syllable any note of their choice," so that their compositions could be sung "learnedly and sweetly." There is little doubt that reservata. in its general sense, referred to A a musical practice that emphasized, to quote Haydon' again, "the proper setting of a text with respect not only to syllable length but also to affective content," and which was "reserved" for an intellectual elite familiar with ancient literature, philosophy, and musical theory, es pecially regarding the three "genera" (diatonic, chromatic, and enhar- monic) and the ethical value attributed to them. Lang-5 also affirms that "one characteristic of reservata is its emphasis on musical inter pretation, on expression, on the drawing out of affects," and that it is the logical development of systematic continuous imitation. The term musica reservata is found for the first time in the work of Coclico, sp ecifically h is Compendium musices. The Compendium deals with practical performance and compositional problems, and is divided into three sections: De moto ornato canendi. Dg regula contranuncti. and De composltione. It epitomizes the style and teaching of Josquin, Coclico1s teacher, and i s an exponent of humanistic ideals in composi tion, that is, the production of music closely allied with poetry, and music following the rhythm and expressing the meaning of the test; in A Haydon, op. c i t ., p. 118. 2LeCoat, op. cit., p. 16. Note the similarity of this definition of reservata to Hauser’s description of Mannerism, pp. 125-126 above. ^L ang, Paul Henry, Music in Western C ivilization. New York: W.W. Norton, 1941> 224. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 a word, expressing the emotion (affectua exprlmare)J According to Quiekelberg,2 the core of Coclico1s concept of musica reservata resides in the new intimate union between word and tone, sub ject matter and music. That Coclico was keenly aware of this fundamental change in the o rientation o f music i s evident from a number of passages in his treatise—from none more clearly than the following:3 "The six th requirement to be made of a composer is th a t he ruminate the text well as to which mode or harmony it asks for, and that he apply the text with taste to its proper place; for those who set words full of consolation and joy to a sad music, and who vice versa compose gay melodies to sad words are in a plight worse than the blind groping in the dark. It is a matter of serious reproach if a musician sets a long note to a short syllable. For music has an in timate relation with poetry." Coclico thus grasps fully the fundamental significance of the musica reservata. which removes music from its traditional place in t he auad- givium. from its union with the mathematical order, and associates it with the trivium consisting of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, or, in other words, with the human world and its main vehicle of communica tion, human speech.^ In the Compendium.^ he states, "music has not been placed outside the number of the liberal arts, for it is taught in the 1‘Carpenter, op. c it,, p. 268. * 2"Quia Musica multum commertij cum poesi habet." Lowinsky, Edward E., Secret Chromatic Art Netherlands Motet. Translated by Carl Buchman. New York: Columbia U niversity Press, 194&, 108. 3ibid. ^ibid. ^Coclico, Adrian P etit, Musical Compendium. Translated by Albert Seay. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music Press, 1973, 7. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. same way as either rhetoric or any other art, as an art, certainly, by practice and by im ita tio n ,11 A very interesting discussion of musica reservata as it is related to the entire Mannerist movement in art is given by Henry Kaufmann in 1 The Life and Works of Nicola Vicentlno. According to Federhofer, reservata had been defined sociologically, aesthetically, stylistically, technically, and from the point of view of performance practice, and the only feature common to all those definitions was in their abberation from a previously established classical norm, or, to put it simply, in 2 their essential anti-classicism, Kaufmann examines the term reservata in the light of its manner!stic attributes: 1, Reservata involves a reversion to an earlier stylistic period for inspiration, 2, As a result, music evolves into a '’new1’ style, 3, This "new" style includes deviations from the technical practices of the High Renaissance. 4., These deviations are excused on the basis of textual considerations which reveal a heightened awareness of the intellectual influence of the Humanist movement, 5, This influence led musicians to experiment in new and ingenious methods of composition, 6, Included in these experiments were the use of chromatic and enharmonic genera and other forms of advanced musical speculation. 7, The nature of these speculations demanded the presence of a highly intelligent and well-trained audience of con noisseurs. "* Kaufmann, Henry William, The Life and Works of Nicola Rome: American In stitu te of Musicology, 1966, 185. l o c . c i t ,, pp, 185-224,. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 8. Such an audience expected brilliant technical achieve ments from the composers and virtuoso accomplishment8 from the perfowners* The humanist influence, mentioned in the fourth attribute above, cannot be overestimated, especially its influence upon matters relating to textual awareness* The musicians among the humanists, in particular, found corroboration for many of their unusual innovations in the pas sages concerning music which they found in their perusal of the ancient authors* The Italians especially considered the heritage of antiquity as part of their native legacy and held in esteem many contemporary usages that could be justified by a reference to this great past. Don Nicola Vicentinol (1511-1572), indulging in his chromatic and enharmonic experiments in I* antics musica ridotta alia modems prattica (1555), can proclaim proudly that he has indeed "reduced ancient music to modem practice," secure in the knowledge that his words will evoke a sympa thetic response from many of his humanist colleagues. Even the sociological conditions under which his "reserved" music was to be performed was an echo of the ancient practice. With the growth of autocracy, the separation of a trained elite from the common herd pro vided the same kind of select audience which had heard the old Greek and p Roman music. At exclusive gatherings of this sort, compositions of a most advanced nature would be likely to find ready listeners. Finally, the ability to sing as well as play difficult chromatic and enharmonic intervals, not only implies an unusual skill, but also **loc. c i t . , pp. 222-223. 2ibid., note 225. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 serves as a reminder that just this type of singing "recalled" a prac tice which had been accepted without question in antiquity* In the same way, the extension of the reservata idea to include solo performances of virtuoso dimensions could be related to that custom of solo presenta tion for which the ancients were famous.^ The ultimate resolution of the reservata question awaits the dis covery of a definitive explanation from a contemporary source. Never theless, the existent references, vague though they be, are not as iso lated and unrelated as many formerly have thought* The unifying thread connecting practically all the sources is the concept of a type of music revived from the past* This revival was not a mere mechanical imitation of e a rlie r models} such deliberate copying would have presented problems even with Gothic music, but was virtually impossible in the case of the music of antiquity, because of the paucity of extant examples* The most that could be restored was the intellectual climate that contributed to the ris e of specific musical phenomena. The s ty lis tic awareness of earlier music supplied the impetus to re-evaluate contemporary musical composition and to evolve new ideas of harmony, melody, and rhythm. I t is only against such a background that the contributions of the more imaginative sixteenth-century theorists and composers can be assessed. Zarlino Of course, not all the theorists and composers of the sixteenth ^ibid. 2loc. cito, pp. 223-224. See also Lang, op. cit., p. 224. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 1 6 1 century were as radical in their allegiance to ancient music as was Vicentino. One of his moderate rivals, Gioseffo Zarlino1 (1517-1590), would only go so fa r: "finally, the chromaticists are of the opinion that any interval whatsoever may be sung, even though its ratio or proportion is not found among the harmonic numbers. Here is how they justify this. The voice is capable of forming any interval, and it is necessary to imitate ordinary speech in representing the words as orators do and ought. There fore it is not inappropriate to use all these intervals to express the ideas contained in the words, with the same ac cents and other effects we employ in conversation, so that the music might move the affections. "I reply that it is indeed inappropriate. It is one thing to speak normally and srothor to speak in song. They say we must imitate the orator if our music is to move the affections. let I have never heard an orator use the strange crude intervals used by the chromaticits tsic]. If orators were to use them, I do not see how they could sway the mind of a judge and convince him of th e ir point of view, as is their goal} rather, the contrary would occur." The reference is, of course, to Vicentino and his followers, who often 2 placed orators as ideal models, as in passgaes such as this: "Now he (the orator) speaks loudly, now softly, and more slowly, and more rapidly, and with this he moves the lis teners very much . . » the same ought to be true in music, because, if the orator moves the listeners by means of the above-stated procedures, how much better and greater will be the effect made by music, recited with the same orders, accompanied by a w ell-united harmony." These words foreshadow in a remarkable way the aesthetic principles fostered by the Camerata almost forty years later. Vicentino^ elsewhere stressed the necessity for the composer to ^Zarlino, Gioseffo, The Art of Counterpoint. Translated by Guy A. Marco and Claude V. Palisca. New Haven: Yale U niversity Press, 1968, 288. Kaufmann, op. cit., p. 162. ^LeCoat, op. cit., p. 83. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "demonstrate the passions with the harmony," taking as a point of de parture the qualities of the voice, that could be in turn "harsh" or "so ft," "happy" or "sad." Prom these q u a litie s, the composer was to •I deduct liis melody by a selection of appropriate in te rv als. Mersenne did not think differently; "Airs are none other than discourses em bellished and enhanced by an excellent harmony." Mersenne, however, did not concur on the matter of Vicentino’s ancient genera. Antici- pating the theories developed by Rameau one century later, he remarked that "the most noticeable difference between the modes concerns the third, that in some cases is minor, and in some others major," and that the "strength" and the "effects" of the modes "are totally dependent on th e ir major or minor th ird s and six th s." TMs led Mersenne to re duce the ancient modes to two basic types, which were to become in the course of the following century our modern major and one of our minor modes.^ Thus Zarlino would prove to be closer to the mainstream of Renais sance thought than Vicentino, and Blume^ states that Zarlino’s Istitu- tione hapnnni^ha of 1558 is a veritable "Magna Carta" of music, unmis takably announcing a turning point. It presents the real situation of music at the end of the era. When Zarlino offered Ms harmonic system he only codified and equipped with a scientific apparatus a doctrine 1 ib id . ^loc. cit., p. 87. 3ibid. ^Blume, op, c i t . , pp. 25-26. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission long in universal use, thus demonstrating the empiric nature of music theory of the time. More strictly than Tinctoris, Zarlino decrees the autonomy of music, and more d e fin ite ly than anyone else he demands its freedom from set purposes, a link with A ristotle's "free play of the spirit."^ Zarlino*s main interest is with imitative polyphony, and he does not seek to revive ancient theories of affective music but to accomodate classical theories of art to contemporary music. In the Sopplimenti musicali of 1588, Zarlino^ states that "it never was nor is it my inten tion to treat of the usage of practice according to the manner of the ancients, neither Greeks nor Romans, even if at times I touch upon it; my intention is solely to describe the method of those who have discov ered one way of causing several parts to sound together with various modulations and various melodies." For Zarlino,^ some determinants of the musical work of art are the "fixed and proportionate number," i.e ., rhythm, and the narrations or oratione which contributes what can be grasped by the senses and the psyche. In the combining of these elements, the vocal work of art be comes the bearer of definite affective character. The composer must therefore see to it that tones, harmony, and rhythm with the help of mimesis "express the words contained in the text." This defines the 'Lang, op. cit., p. 441. ^Blume, op. c i t ., pp. 25-26, ^Sadowsky, op. c i t . , p. 102, note 1. ^Blume, op. c i t ., p. 26. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ars perfeota of Josquin, the buona maniera of the Renaissance in its perfected state but not yet in its final Baroque-minded form. The text serves as the model for the natural world which music imitates by pro viding concrete image as well as abstract mood and "tone" for musical ornamentation and construction. The soggetto della parole is "imitated” in the musical subject which is created from the predominant tone or image of individual voids. The "subject" is then imitated polyphonically. Both concepts of imitation (della nature, and della parole) allow music to be considered as an art which imitates nature in the large or the ex ternal appearance of natural things in poetry.^ Thus through nr tone and rhythm in equilibrium can be brought to their highest objective: to represent to affects to which the sensitive auditor will respond with 2 understanding. Because of this interest in the text, Zarlino, like other theorists of the Cinquecento, was very "rhetoric conscious." LeCoat^ notes that Zarlino invited composers to study "the precepts of poetry and of ora tory set down by Plato, A ristotle, Hermogenes, Demetrius Phalerius, Cicero, Quintilian, Horace, and others besides," because the "custom" of the musician resembled "not only that of the poets, but also of the painters." Zarlino^ takes the first two of the three divisions of rhe toric, inventio. dlspositio. and elocutio. and relates them to musical ^Sadowsky, op. c i t . , p. 103. ^Blume, op. c it., pp. 26-27. ^LeCoat, op. cit., p. 36. 4loc. c it., pp. 37-38. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 practice. Invent!o he defines as the choice of a subject by the artist "in accordance with the loftiness of his imagination.w Then he substi tutes composltio for dispositio. in as much as the former was originally used in relation to the task of structuring the piece of music; it fi nally came to designate the piece of music itself. Zarlino carefully avoided elocutio. since it is directly related to verbal communication; however, his notion of ornamentation was in perfect accord with the teachings of rhetoric. At the same time, though, there is still lacking any close tie with the theory of rhetorical disposition of fjgurae and elegantiae. This will come only after the turn of the century. lasso and Wert The composers of Italian madrigals were also concerned about the relationship between text and music, so much so that their procedures have come to be called madrigal lame although, in fact, such devices were used long before the madrigal.^ Einstein^ tells us that nLasso’s madrigals reveal most strongly and clearly one aspect of the inner change that takes place in music during the second part of the sixteenth century! . . . the trend away from gaiety, vitality, and artlessness toward contrition, . . • the transition from Renaissance to Counter- Reformation. " 1 Blume, op. c i t ., pp. 26-27. ^Wangerm6e, op. c i t . , p. 78. ^Einstein, Alfred, The Italian Madrigal. Translated by Alexander Krappe and others. Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1949, I I , 477. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 Orlando di lasso's (Qrlandus Lassus, Roland de Lassus, 1532-1594) 1 treatment of text abounds in felicities. Reese states that various technical and rh eto rical devices used by him and other sixteenth-century composers were codified as figurae by Joachim Burmeister in treatises published in 1599, 1601, and 1606; more shall be said on this matter la te r . However, the real intermediary between the early theory and practice of m adrigalians such as Rore and the Baroque masters such as Monteverdi was Giaches de Wert (1535-1596), although this was not his only role. He was one of the late sixteenth-century composers most deeply involved with affetto della narola. and textual-musical correspondence is the principle which governs and animates his work, often causing him to depart from the elegant, dispassionate and balanced madrigal and to 3 write his passionate, intimate, baroque songs. MacClintock notes that with each succeeding volume he places new emphasis on contrasting emo tions and musical imagery, on pictorial detail and word-painting, on color and nuance; chromaticism and note nere begin to have a larger place and a freer handling of both text and music becomes the rule. More important than any other expressive device, however, is Wert1s development of the declamatory or parlando style. This practice above all sets Wert apart from his contemporaries and places him very early ^Reese, Gustave, Music in the Renaissance. New York: W.W. Norton, 1959, 694. ^Einstein, op. cit., p. 512„ ^MacClintock, Carol, Giaches de Wert (1.535-1596); lif e and Works- Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1966, 190-191. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 167 on the stylistic level later arrived at by his younger contemporaries. From 1575 on, Wert’s sty le becomes even more ario so -lik e, ever more concise and unadorned. "La parola" is the essential, and is served w ell. For h is generation Wert was exceptional, bringing musical ex pressiveness to a new level and new freedom, in fact, to the doorway of the Baroque.^ French Speculation on Music in the Sixteenth Century Even as the Flemish and Ita lia n th e o rists and composers were codi fying the musical practice of the late sixteenth century, the French were also reaching the culmination of the humanist tradition. Most of this work was tinder the auspices of the University of Paris, and from this school the new currents of thought were appearing which were to signal the new age ahead. The humanist movement had a strong effect on musicians in Paris, who in turn influenced musicians elsewhere in Europe. By 1598 a humanist course of studies was in effect at the University of Paris, designed to emphasize classical writings in the original rather than commentaries, and empirical rather than scholastic methods. The course in arts was to conclude with two years of Aristo telian philosophy, and the curriculum for the second year comprised physics, metaphysics, and geometry. Music was probably taught as a part of mathematics (as in the Middle Ages) until the end of the century, 2 when it became a part of physics. 1loc. cit., p. 196. 2Carpenter, op. cit., p. 140. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 8 There are numerous indications of the close relationship between music and mathematics in France during the Renaissance. Jacques Leffcvre d'Etaples was a great advocate of the mathematical-type of musical studies, and he also was the teacher of many men later distinguished for their humanistic learning, among them the Swiss humanist and mnslcaa I Glare anus. Ramus, the professor of philosophy whose importance we have already discussed, left many mathematical works among his numerous opera. one of which was a treatise on music, no longer extant.^ This connection of music and mathematics was firm ly in the medieval tra d itio n . However, there are several musicians who taught music at the university who were partly responsible for the changing attitude toward music in the Renais sance* One example is Pierre Mouton, canon and later organist at Notre Dame, who was a maerister artium at the university. While at the Sorbonne for the study of law, Adrian Willaert studied composition with another Mouton, the composer Jean Mouton, and Glare anus also came in oontact ■a with Jean Mouton in Paris. ^ The mathematical approach to music would, of course, eventually give way to the literary, which, insofar as France is concerned, would become the dominant trend of the next century. One of the earliest French humanists, Pontus de Tyard,^ in his Solitairs Second ou Prose de la Haslaue of 1555, speaks of the effects of purely musical elements on "'loc. cit., p. 141. ^loc. cit., pp. 141-142. 3loc. cit., pp. 144-145. 4Sadowsky, op.c i t . , pp. 98-99. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 character and passion as veil as the effects of music in the service of a text, which has a greater affective power than music alone. Tyard uses classical sources as proof of this musical-poetical combination in the performance of ancient lyrical poetry. He finds the most affective musical setting to be "la simple et unique volx," a most unusual pre ference in view of the then-current polyphony. Tyard was the mentor and predecessor to Half’s Academie Frangoise de Podsie e t de Musique (c. 1570), and he undoubtedly influenced the belief of that group in a combination of affective music and poetry as the basis for moving passions.^ Jean-Antoine de Baif (1532-1589) was a private pupil of Jean Dorat, professor of Greek literature and enthu siastic musician, in whose lecture room the famous Pleiade actually originated. Dorat, with his enthusiasm for music and ancient lyrical poetry, was at least indirectly responsible for the Academie as well, which was opened by Balf and the composer Joachim Thibault to give in struction in and performances of musique mesuree a l 1 antique—a true union of words and music, with musical rhythms related to the poetic meter of the text and with many implications of ethos in the old Greek sense.^ The idea that most of the affects described in ancient music depended on rhythm survived into the next century.^ Another member of the Academie and of the Pleiade was Pierre de Ronsard, whose Preface printed at the beginning of two collections of ^loc. c it., pp. 99-100. ^Carpenter, op. cit., pp. 145-146. 3sadowsky, op. c it., p. 101. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. songs published in 1560 and 1572 by LeRoy and Ballard refers the reader to Boethius and Plutarch, showing once again the great influence and authority of the former and the new interest in the latter, a situation 4 characteristic of the French humanists. All these examples of influen tia l humanist philosophers-musicians underscore the fact that music was very much a part of higher learning at the University of Paris during the sixteenth century, continuing on the one hand along medieval lines and assuming on the other certain aspects typical of the Renaissance, the most important being the dose association of music and dasslcal poetry. This association was responsible for a new type of polyphonic p music—musiaue me suree. Sadowsky5 points out that although French speculation on the com bination of music and poetry was viable until the first decades of the seventeenth century, the center of influence shifted from France to Italy, and the ideas of Zarlino, among others, became the basis of French theory in the first half of the new century. At the same time, in Germany, the beginnings of a systematic musical rhetoric are to be found. Basing his wort on the Italian theorists of the late sixteenth century, Joachim Burmeister (1564-1629) established a comprehensive theory of musical figures (Ficurenlehre). This theory is developed in three workst ^Carpenter, op. c i t . , pp. 146-147* ^loc. cit., p. 152. 3$adowsky, op. c it., p. 102. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Brosnpeaatua Musicae Poetlcae (1599), MagiSfi afttagOhpdlflgMto (1601), and Musica poetlca (1606). Other works after BurmeiBter1 s in itial inventory include the Ole- poeitio musics tertia (1610), ggaopjlfi l&SiPM S°Z2S. (1612), and &U&- ^phia rerse g£ slncerae synopticae (1614) of Johannes Iippius; Johannes Nucius* Muslces Poeticae • • • Praaceptiopeg absolutlsslm ae (1613); the Qpusculum bipartitum (1625) of Thuringus; Johann Andreas Herbst’s Musics poetlca (1643); the Musurgla universalis (1650) of Athanasius Kireher; Christoph Bernhard's Tractatus compositionls auementatus. Von tier Slnge- Kunst fiaeJC Manler. and Ausffihrllcher BpjAfiMi SSL. fipJEmfflfite. §Q£ Cofi- aopanzen und Dissonanzien: the Disertatlo musics ( 1664) of Elias Walther; Wolfgang Caspar P rin ts' 3 Phrrais Mitilenaeus ode£ flsjggfaghSE fiPTOBPlfift. (1696); and the MmrticnH *nhe Frflbllngg-. g2EEBR-> Ssxkstr* m l &£&££- Gesprflch (1695-1701) o f Johann Georg Able. After the turn of the century, the important texts which treat Fieurenlehre are Thomas Balthasar Janovka1 s Clovis Thesaurua maenae artls muaiose (1701); the Praecepta der aasigalischeB Composition (1708) and mH sahen Lexicon (1732) of Johann Gottfried Walther; Johann Kuhnau's Texts jgBE Lelpzlger Sircheg-Muaic (1709); the Conclave Thesauri riamaa artls musicae (1719) of Mauritius Vogt; Johann David Heinichen's Sa£ General-Bass £gx Composition (1728); Dg£ M&eiS&fi (1738) of Adolph Scheibe; and fin a lly Johann Matthe son* s Der ™i1))COTnn>ene Ca- (1739). Schmitz”* divides the musical-rhetorical figures into two large MubD c MscMchte und Gggenuart. s*v, "figures, musikalisch- rhetorische,” by Arnold Schmitz. permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 classes: the Hrcotyposis or descriptive figures, and the BmnhAHifl or sress figures. Burmeister1 defined Bypotvpoais thus: "Hypotyposis est illu d omamentum, quo tex tu s sig n ific a tio i t a deumbratnr, u t ea, quae textui sub sunt et animam vitamque non habent, vita esse praedita videan- tur." Figures of Epphasls vere best described in Abie's2 Somme r-Gesprflch. and included primarily figures of repetition—repetition of a group of notes in a single voice to lay stress on a word or group of words. The classification and usage of the various figures varied widely from com poser to composer and theorist to theorist; since the terminology of Figurenlehre was borrowed from literary theory and applied rather arbi trarily to music, resulting in sometimes vague correspondences between the musical and rhetorical figure of the same name, this variance is not difficult to understand. An in-depth discussion of the figures would be beyond the scope of this historical overview; however Schmitz^ gives a detailed summary of the various figures and their classifications, and Weasel^1 tre a ts th is subject a t some length. Figures in the music of Wert are discussed by MacClintock. ^ The point to be remembered is that musical figures, like the rhetorical figures from which they were derived, carried no affective 1ib id . 2ib id . 3ibid, ^Vessel, Frederick T*, "The Affektenlehre in the 18th Century." Unpublished doctor's dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1955, 212-222. ^MacClintock, op. cit. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission connotations. Their usage was limited to emphasising or describing the text, and they were basically structural devices, restricted to the mechanical creation of music. Vessel1 points out that W lend themselves to Affektenlehre only in the creation of additional emphasis o f a word o r phrase, and sta te s: nThe only connection which these figures have with the Affektenlehre is in the increase of the expression and no attempt is made to identify any particular expression, so that the figures could increase the expression whether it were sad or happy, mournful or gay. Further, it is appar ent that some of these figures retained their shape and became types of musical embellishments which even hers lost the quality of expressiveness in the last years of the cen tu ry .n Figuren were the first conscious attempt to systematically correlate musical theory and practice to rhetorical theory and practice and grew out of the Renaissance ideal of textual expression in music. They were derived from the common polyphonic practice of the time, providing im petus to the new monody just being created, and helping bridge the gap between Renaissance and Baroque style. G alilei and Monody Monody, as Einstein^ notes, was in existence long before the appear ance of the Came rata, in the form of a recitation over a basso ostlnato. In his attack on Vicentino’s use of chromatic and enharmonic genera, Zarlino^ states that the modems achieve the same effects as the ancients, 1 Vessel, op= « it.. pp. 220-221. 2Einstein, op. cit., p. 836. ^loc. cit., pp. 837-838. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 and without the use of difficult genera* "Thus we see that in our day music arouses various passions in us, just as it did in ancient times* For sometimes when a beautiful, learned, and elegant poem is recited to the sound of an instrument, the listeners are greatly moved and led to behave is various way ^-laughing, weeping, and doing other similar things* And as to this, it has been our ex perience with the beautiful and graceful writings of Arlsto that when, among other things, the piteous death of Zerbino and the lamentable complaint of Isabella are recited, the listeners are moved by compssion and weep not less than Ulysses did when he heard the singing of Demodoous, that excellent musician and poet* So if we do not hear that music affects people today as i t once moved Alexander, this may be because the causes are different, and not similar as my op ponents suppose* For if music had these effects in ancient times, it was being performed in the manner already described and not, as is usual at present, with a multitude of parts and with so many singers and instrum ents th a t one sometimes hears nothing but the noise and uproar of voices mixed with the sounds of various instruments, a singing without judgment or discretion and with the words pronounced in so disorderly a manner that nothing but confusion is heard* When music is performed in th is maimer i t can have no e ffe ct on us worth remembering* But one w ill see i t s e ffe c ts when i t i s per formed with judgment and brought close to the usage of the ancients—when to the sound of the lira , the lute, or some other similar instrument one sings in a simple style of mat ters that partake of the comic or tragic or of similar things that contain long narratives* For in truth the soul can be little moved by those little songs called madrigals which, although they give much pleasure, do not have the power in question*" This sort of monody begins with the appearance of Arlsto's Orlando furioso in 1516. However, true monody appeared only later in ths cen tury, and its expression in theory was by Vioenzio Galilei (c. 1520- 1591) in his Dialogo della aaisioa antlca e della, moderna of 1581. This work showed a Platonic influence th a t led toward an emphasis on c la rity of textual expression and a different interpretation of the concept of musical imitation itse lfJ The Dialogo reproduced the discussions of 1Sadowsky, op* c i t . , p. 105. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 the Florentine Camerata, and its mentor, Giovanni de1 Bardi (1534— c. 1612), was one of the interlocutors, the other being Piero Strozzi. The dominant feature of the work is an unrelenting criticism of the music of the time which was based on counterpoint, Galilei advances a return to the simplicity of ancient monody; this seemed to be an es sential preliminary to the emotional and ethical power of ancient music described by Greek and Latin authors.1 Galilei begins with Plato’s contention in the Heruhlio that a musical imitation of passionate human utterance will best affect the hearer, and he includes the Platonic demand in the Lavs that all ele ments of music must be subordinated to the ideas of the text* Pas sionate speech and especially the pitch or intonation of the voice in path etic declamation thus becomes the model fo r musical im itation or expression. Variable pathetic speech accents mirror the textual con c e tti and combine with musical tones in the single monodic lic e —an 2 attempted recreation of an affective ancient music* A monodic a r t i s demanded because the single melodic lin e presents the concetto della parole overo dell’animo in the most direct, simplest, and most natural way* Polyphony, on the other hand, did not allow for clear presentation and understanding of the textual idea, because, says Galile i,3 its sole aim "is to delight the ears, while that of ancient ' P irro tta , Nino, "Temperaments and Tendencies in the Florentine Camerata." Translated by Nigel Fortune. Musical Quarterly. XL (1954), 171-172. %adowsky, op* cit*, p. 105. 3strunk, op. cit., pp. 314-315, 317. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 6 music is to induce in another the same passion that one feels oneself.tt He continues* "For the mind, being chiefly taken up and, so to speak, bound by the snares of pleasure thus produced, is not given time to understand, let alone consider, the badly uttered words* All this is wholly different from what is necessary to pas sion from its nature, for passion and moral character must be pimple and natural, or at least appear so, and their sole aim must be to arouse the counterpart in others.” Elsewhere, Galilei stated that music had two functions: first, "expres sing the passions with efficacy," and second, "coomunieating them, with an equal force, to the spirits of mortals." Galilei made sixteenth-century Italian music theory an even closer part of previous oratorical—poetic speculation. He considered the singer a type of dramatic actor, who moves the passions of the audience through the rational communication of poetic concept or idea* He does this by singing the words clearly and distinctly and by giving the properly pa thetic tone, gesture, rhythm, or harmony to his melodic line, depending on the situation or action of the speaking character.^ Galilei^ asserts th a t the composer must therefore observe "in what manner [the character] speaks, how high or low his voice i s pitched, with what volume of sound, with what sort of accents and gestures, and with what rap id ity or slowness his words are uttered. * * * From these variations of cir cumstances, if they observe them attentively and examine them with care, they will be able to select the norm of what is fitting for the expression of any conception whatever that can call for their handling." ^LeCoat, op. cit., p. 17. ^Sadowsky, op. c i t . , p. 107. 3Strunk, op. cit., p. 318. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 Galilei' s concept of a musical imitation of oratorical delivery and manner of moving affections on Platonic grounds ju s tifie d the in troduction of a continuous recitative into late sixteenth and early seventeenthscentury Italian music drama, especially in the works of •j Peri and Caccini, two other members of the Camerata. The concept of passion or idea as poetic concept and of musical imitation of passion ate speech appear throughout the theoretical works of the Camerata. For example, in the preface to his opera Buridloe (1600), Giulio Caccini (c. 1546-1618) defined musical composition as an imitation "of the ideas conveyed by the words," and prescribed the use of chords "more or less passionate" according to their expressive contents. For him, the in gredients of music are "little more than the narrative, the rhythm, and lastly the sound," and "this order cannot be reversed." Jacopo Peri^ (1561-1633), in the preface to hi 3 own Euridice (1601) declared that it was necessary "to imitate speech in song," having in mind "the manners and inflections in which we demonstrate our grief, our joy, and similar sta te s." The principle of was considered incompatible with the prac tice of counterpoint, since the overlapping of motifs in the contra puntal style did not allow a clear understanding of the words nor a satisfactory treatment of their phonological structure. In his Djscorgo soora la Httsica antlca e 'l canter bene (c. 1580), the head of the Caa- ^Sadowsky, op. c i t . , p. 108* 2LeCoat, op. cito, pp. 17-18. %oc. cit., p. 18. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 erata, Bardi,1 laughed at "Messer Baas who, soberly dressed in semibreves and minims, stalks throng the ground-floor rooms of his palace while Soprano decked out in minims and seal minims, walks hurriedly about the terrace at a rapid pace and Messers Tenor and Alto, with various ornaments and in habits different from the others, stray through the rooms of the intervening floors. • • • While the soprano sings *Voi che ascoltate in rime4, the bass at the same tins sings other words, thus mixing one idea with another, which rightly considered is the torture and death of forsaken music.n His final advice was the following: "In composing, then, you will make it your chief aim to ar range the verse well and to declaim the words as intelligibly as you can, not letting yourself be led astray by the counter point like a bad swimmer who lets himself be carried out of his course by the current and comes to shore beyond the mark that he had set, for you will consider it self-evident that, just as the soul is nobler than the body, so the words are nobler than the counterpoint." o Bardi passed these observations on to his protege Cacoinl, who, in the preface to his I& nuove muslche of 1602, concurred: "I can tru ly say th a t I gained more from th e ir [.the Camerata* s] learned discussions than from my more than thirty years of counterpoint. For these most knowledgeable gentlemen kept encouraging me, and with the most lucid reasoning convinced me, not to esteem that sort of music which, preventing any clear understanding of the words, shatters both their form . and content, now lengthening and now shortening syllables to accommodate the counterpoint (a laceration of the poetry!), but ra th e r to conform to th a t manner uo lauded by Flato and other philosophers (who declared that male is naught but speech, with rhythm and tone coming after; not vice versa) with the aim that it enter into the minds of men and have those wonderful effects admired by the great writers." The most important quality of music, then, is the complete audibility of the test. Galilei, Bardi, Caccini, Perl, Doni, Crivellati: all these 1loc. d t., pp. 18-19. 2Caceini, Giulio, La nuove muslche. Edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock. Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 1970, 44. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 179 men rage against polyphonic madrigals because the words are generally incomprehensible. What kind of music is this, asks Doai,1 that makes nonsense of great poetry and has to fall back repeatedly on feeble love lyrics? These theorists nearly always write from the point of view of the listener, and they are among the first writers on music to do so. During the last decades of the century, one poet was to denounce particularly strongly the "low” level of madrigal writing from the o standpoint of both the text and the music, and that was Tasso. For him secular music ought to attain the genus grande whenever the subject required it. Imbued like the Cameratlsts with classical culture, he harbored a nostalgia for Greek tragedy in which the music expressed things other than the "torments of love." Although Caccini^ would complain that "vocal roulades axe i ll used" and would state that "naaaaggi were not devised because they are essen tial to good singing style but rather, I believe, as a kind of tickling of the ears of those who hardly understand what affective singing really is," the Florentines loved to clothe their extravagant texts with bizarre harmonic progressions and clashes and with expressive, truly vocal orna ments called gorge. Fortune^ points out that these ornaments, introduced by Caccini, were more expressive and dependent upon the text than the 1 Fortune, Nigel, "Italian Seventeenth-Century Singing." Mnaio and tefcteaa, xxxv ( 1954) , 218. 2LeCoat, op. cit., p. 202. 3Caccini, op. d t., p. 47. ^Fortune, Nigel, "Italian Secular Monody from 1600 to 1635: An Introductory Survey." Musical flv- XXXIX (1953), 182. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 0f ornaments recommended in certain late sixteenth-century hand books on the subject of diminution. Many monodists, however, treated embellishments merely as word-painting in order to illustrate words such as "waves" and "lau ghter," They also used formulas to illu s tr a te sighing, trembling, swooning, silence, and other standard madrigal images* These le s s rad ical monodists would even re so rt to "eye music" when they wanted to emphasize words such as "white" or "black," just the sort of naive literalism that Galilei had attacked so fiercely in the madrigals of the sixteenth century. The progressive monodists, however, were more careful, and seem to have used gorge to emphasize less tragic passions such as intense love or pride, and to have kept harmonic asperities for grievous subjects like absence, parting, and i faithlessness* Fortune2 notes that the result of this care was an amiable diatonic lyricism, Caccini, in adopting this lyrical manner, was clearly follow ing the advice of Bardi,^ who suggested that he reject "the improper practices employed today by those who search for unusual sounds," He had assembled for Caccini a formidable catalogue of evidence from Plato, Aristotle, Maerobius, Petrarch, and Dante in support of this lyrical style.^ Fortune^ asserts that those Florentine madrigalists who went ^loc* c it* , pp* 182-183* 2ib id . 3strunk, op* cite, p* 299* ^loc* cit*, pp* 299-300, ^Fortune, "Italian Secular Monody," op. cit*, p, 184* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 181 in for "unusual sounds" were historically unimportant) and that "as early as 1580 or so such nan were frowned upon by those who introduced 1 the new music*1 But at least they tried to reflect the restless spirit of the age, whereas the music of Caccini or Hasl may still seem to remind us of the ausio of the High Benai8sanoe* Domenico Belli and Benedetti are the most important of these composers—we might call them mannerists—for whom no clash was too acrid) no progression too outrd." Of course there were some m sdrlgalists who seem to be a compromise be- tween the two extremes of Caccini and the mannerists} the dignity and grandeur of their madrigals make them perhaps the most striking songs of the timeJ The new monodic sty le appeared almost a t the same time in songS) church concert!, and Florentine opera. Giovanni Battista Doni (1594- 1647)) jurist) eminent classical scholar) professor of rhetoric, and writer on musical subjects, is perhaps the most important source for the animated days of th is s ty lis tic change* Don!2 speaks of the new monodic recitative style with groat entusiasm and considers it a deci sive step towards the perfect rendering of a text by a single singer* The performance of what he designates the stile espressivp was more like natural speech than singing, and it was calculated to give a more Immediate expression of the affect than could polyphony. Caccini3 echoes Doni's concern for expression of the affect in phrases such as this* "muovere l fa ffe tto d e ll' animo." Hers i s expressed the highest aim of music according to the thought of Caccini and his 1ib id . 2Iang, op. cit., pp. 333-334. ^Caccini, op. cit., p. 45* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 circle—indeed, of the whole Baroque era, Hitchcock1 explains that Caccini used the word affetto often and in two ways. In this phrase the word approximates the German Affekt and refers to a state of mind- cum-emotlon. Later in Ifi, nuove muslche. Caccini2 termed vocal embel lishments such as the tremelo and trill as affettl. Hitchcock^ states* "The double meaning a rise s from the Baroque theory th a t music1s aim i s to ’move the a ffe c t’ ( f i r s t meaning) by embodying i t self an affect (first meaning), often in particular, even stereotyped idioms or affects (second meaning). In its second meaning, affetto approaches the modern English ’device' or even, in one of i t 3 meanings, 'effect.' Caccini too occa sionally uses affetto as a synonym for affetto (second mean in g ).” Affect became an increasingly important concept throughout the Baroque, reaching its culmination in the so-called "doctrine of the affections.” A principal means for developing an affective style was the con sistent application of rhetoric to music. We have seen that this idea is not a new one; the theorists of the Renaissance base themselves on i t to some extent. However, from Caccini, Bardi, and Peri onward com position theory consistently demands that the construction of a piece of music must correspond to that of the rhetoric of the text, the indi vidual musical "figure” to the rhetorical figure. Like these theories of the parts of speech and of figures, so also those of jnventio. of loci tonici. of kinds of style, declamation, elegantiae prgtlonis. and so forth became fundamental to the development of the Baroque style as 1ib id . 2loc, cit*, pp, 47-49. ^loc. cit,, p, 45* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 a whole.^ Mersenne LeCoat2 sta te s th a t the Ita lia n th e o rists and composers of thlB period took an initiative role in the development of a humanistic ideal which was taken as a model throughout Europe* However, the ultim ate fruition of that ideal took place elsewhere, and it was due to the in fluence of French thought that it took place at all* The first example of a French interest in the subject of a musical rhetoric is Marin Mersenne’s (1588-16^8) Harmonie universelle. written between 1626 and 1636. "Music," stated Mersenne,3 "is an imitation, or representation, as well as poetry, tragedy, or painting • • • for it does with sound . • • what the poet does with rimes, the actor with gestures, and the p ain ter with lig h t, shadow, and colors*" The "harmonic orator" must know "all that which is relevant to the accents of the passions • « • in oider to provoke in the listener the desired reaction." He must "imitate the art of the harangue, using all sorts of figures and har monic passages, as does the orator* • • « The a rt of composing a irs , and counterpoint, does not yield anything to rhetoric." These statements confirm the persistence of humanistic concepts: for Mersenne the conmon denominator of the arts still is mimesis. How- Blums, op* c it* , pp* 104-105* o LeCoat, op. cit*, p. iv. 3loc* cit., p. 24* Reproduced with permissionof the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 184 ever, after decades of fruitful investigation, the study of the render ing of Tnpnan emotions nov reached a turning point. Having classified the passions and the bodily motions related to them in a vay that, by the criteria of the time, seemed both objective and exhaustive, and having furthermore codified the corresponding descriptive devices, many scholars and twlta-ho raa docti believed that they were on the verge of arriving at the final stage of their inquiry.^ To quote Mersenne2 again on musics "When we w ill have worked as seriously to p erfect music as we have the other fields of knowledge, and when a great mul titude of men, all learned and judicious will have directed their work towards this research, as have done those who taught us geometry and the other sciences, I think that we will be able to find irrefutable rules concerning the crea tio n of good music." Mersenne approached these "irrefutable rules" from two sidest rhythm and pitch. Regarding rhythm patterns, musicians followed the same principles as the poets. Mersenne,3 like Tasso, underlined that both are submitted to the same necessity of "using intelligently all sorts of motions, or rhythmic feet." The making of airs, like that of poems, involves the "art of arranging motions, that the Greeks call rythmppoeia. • • • i t consists in knowing and choosing fe e t o r meters • • • which are appropriate for the expression of the passions." The point o f departure is the same: long vs. short. However, he continues, composers are much freer than poets in the treatment of metrical feet, ^loc. cit., pp. 24-25. 2ib id . 3loc. cit., pp. 80-81. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 the reason being that they use then "without observing other measure than that which they deem proper to create beautiful motions in the melody." In other words, they are dealing with a much more flexible m aterial than syllables belonging to spoken words* They can stre tc h the long syllables of words to create melismas, or they can shrink the short syllable, using "a precipitate movement" which will make the foot "more sensitive and more vigorous." Mersenne also discusses meter, distinguishing between binary and ternary forms. In this discussion, he refers to "ascending" and "descend ing" rhythms and slow and fast motion, concepts already familiar to 'the 1 ancient theorists. What defined music for Mersenne, as for the ancients, and separated it from poetry and painting, was pitch. The control over intervals, especially, marks the superiority of music over ordinary speech. Never theless, the human speaking voice remained the model par excellence. For Mersenne,^ "airs are none other than discourses embellished and en hanced by an excellent harmony." Melody ought to adhere as closely as possible to intonations of speech and should stay in conformity "with the imagination and intention of whoever is speaking." Having selected a passion, the composer's task consisted in "duplicating the intervallic patterns Cuttered by the speaking voiced painstakingly." Ultimately, Mersenne associated the size of the intervals to the intensity of the ^loc. cit», pp. 81-82. 2loc. cit., pp. 83-84. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 passions, sta tin g th a t "the h alf-step s represent te a rs and moaning by virtue of their small intervals which signify weakness: small intervals are similar to infants, old people, and those who have just recovered from a long illness, and cannot walk with large steps • . » when one goes up one minor half-step, one advances only a 24th part of the sound which preceded."1 This quantitative aspect was not the only one taken into account by Mersenne for the determination of the expressive value of the musical interval. Mersenne2 also discussed five pairs of opposites which he considered equally important: 1. major vs. minor. The major intervals, larger by a half step than the minor ones, possess energy. 2. diatonic vs. chromatic. The diatonic, or “natural" in tervale, "are made by the shepherd as well as the musioian." They are easy to perform. The chromatic, or "artificial" intervals, "were invented by the musicians to embellish their art." The former are "appropriate for joy," while the latter "are assigned to sadness." 3. consonant vs. dissonant. Consonant intervals represent "what is agreeable." Dissonant intervals are like "haras sing noises" whose purpose is to correct an excessive sweet ness, as do "spices" and "vinegar." 4. ascending vs. descending. Ascending intervals are more dynamic than descending ones, because "when the voice descends, it unbends and relaxes, while it tightens when it ascends." 5. high vs. low. The high range represents vehemence and enthusiasm, the low range softness and weakness. The middle register represents temperance and moderation. In order to realize the fusion of the rhythmic and melodic elements in the overall structure of the piece of music, the composer had to 1ib id . 2loc. cit., p. 85. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 choose a mode, a tonal center, and a genre. Begarding modes, Mersenne still referred to the old Greek classification, based on the concept of ethos: however, this system had become an abstraction by the time of Mersenne, the musical idioms having undergone profound transformations 1 J) th a t rendered them quite d ifferen t. ’ Mersenne* preferred to reduce the number of ancient modes to two basic types, which were to become in the course of the following century our modern major and one of our minor modes. The expressive q u a litie s of these two types were diam etrically opposed because of the totally different "effects” of the intervals of third and sixth, as is noted in the first pair of opposites, above. The tonal centers were to be obtained by placing the scale struc tures at specific pitch levels. Mersenne^ noted that "the difference between tonal centers depends solely on the high and low." The expres siveness was determined in relation to the pitch level of the initial tone, whence followed all others, that is, the higher the initial tone, the greater the tension generated. Note that Mersenne does not assign affective connotations to various keys, as "key" was not yet under stood in the modem sense. This characterization of keys would only come later, after equal temperament had become established. Regarding genres, Mersenne also took up the ancient classification, distinguishing between the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic. The first two genres have already been mentioned as the second pair of ^loc. cit., pp. 86-87. ^loc. cit., pp. 87-89. 3ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 opposites of melodic intervals* If the chromatic genre presupposes the use of altered intervals (chroaatikos. the "colored" intervals of the Greeks), the enharmonic genre is characterized by the use of mioro- intervals, that is, quarter tones. Mersenne rejected the enharmonic as being too difficult to sing, if not impossible in the case of part music* His conclusion1 anticipated the auerelle des ancients s i dS£ modemes which was to provide such a polemic at the turn of the eight eenth century: "Our practitioners can speak daringly and maintain that they no longer have need of the music of the Greeks, having so much added to the invention of the ancients by their industry and their art*" French Opera: Racine, Lully, and Lecerf Italian opera, closely associated with aristocratic circles, had little influence in France in the first part of the seventeenth century* There was a knowledge th a t i t existed and th a t i t was purported to have extraordinary affective powers* But-, as we have noted before, French connections to the musical advances of the late sixteenth century in Italy remained limited generally to adaptations of Zarllno, and Galilei 2 was almost unknown. The French court and salon cultivated an indigenous air £e gour and b»i lftt de cour under their own auspices during this period; however, the b a l l e t ^ entrees (the dominant form of the b a l l e t de cour a fte r 1620) was not conceived of as a unified dramatic genre. Benserade reinstated ^loc* cit*, pp. 89-90. “Sadowsky, op* c it* , p* 109. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 189 a unified dramatic plot in the ballet in 1650 and this development was subsequently continued in Moliere's comed^.ee-^ ^ ^ ^ -^ Doni^ in his T raite de Musioue ( 1640) claimed that the basis for the techniques of the aic cour were the sentiments tendres g£ delicate» He contrasts these sentiments favorably with Italian artifice, "science,” or mere technical superiority* Around the middle of the century, however, there were developments toward a more pathetic or emotive stage art concerned with two indepen dent problems* One aimed at a more emotional Interpretation of text and at an intonational variation of stage declamation based on a natural language of passion* The other approach considered the new central in terest in tragedy to be the imitation and representation of passion in particular and the raising of equivalent passion in the audience. Both concern a broadening of the histrionic or stage art in terms of greater affective or pathetic audience reactions*^ At the same time that stage art was becoming more dramatic, French opera, under the influence of the newly-imported bel-canto Italian opera, was reorganizing Itself from a dramatic to a lyrical style* This was seen as a denial of the Aristotelian demands for a katharsis through the tragic passions of pity and fear and as a replacement of these de mands by & merely pleasurable appeal to tendre and galant passions*^ 1ib id . 2loc. cit*, p. 111. ^loc* cit*, pp* 111- 114. ^loc. cit*, p. 120. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 Other criticism of early opera centered on the belief that singing it self was foreign in nature to the spirit of tragedy on the grounds of verisimilitude and bienseance. There was also a disinclination to con sider opera as a really independent genre. Opera was seen to be a lower and degenerate kind of tragedy which forfeited the power to move the passions to ethical action by distorting the moral lessons of the text and by su b stitu tin g mere aural pleasure fo r a genuine moving of the passions.^ 2 Sadowsky notes that the possibility of reconsidering opera within the framework of tragedy rather than as a separate outgrowth " competing" with the older genre is exposed in Jean Racinef s (1639-1699) innovations in declamation at the Comldie Frangaise. Actually, a development in the relationship of pathos, tone, and gesture and an expansion of the concept of a natural musical language of passion occurred simultaneously in the fields of classic theater and opera at the beginning of the 1670‘s. This development concerns a discovery of the precise "tones" of dramatic poetry and an exaggeration of the intonations of passionate speech so that the resultant declamation appears somewhere between singing and re c itin g . There was a movement in the academies at about the same time toward a precision and narrowing of expressive artistic techniques and of the passions they imitated. The result was a number of "catalogues" which purported to list the appropriate gesture, facial expression, and even 1loc. cit®, pp. 120-121. 2ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 posture for any given passion to be imitated# The parallel to these catalogues in Racine's stage innovations was a listing of an extensive number of performance practices, including lea accents, lea tons, and les gestes. for declaiming different passions and different pathetic figures of speech; these were finally collected by Grimareet in his Treatise on Recitation. 1707. Whether such catalogues show the effect of Cartesian mechanistic theories on passion in art, or whether they were a wider application of the section on inventio in the traditional rhetorics to general art theory and practice, their basis was the belief that the expressive techniques of all arts of imitation were capable of 1 2 precision. Bukofzer points out that this analogy between symbol and passion always depends upon an intellectual!zation; precise meanings for the symbols listed in the catalogues depend on an idea of the pre cise connection between the symbols and the pasBions they represent. There must be a preexistent affective model for the artistic symbol. When Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) took the quasi-musical accents and inflections of Racine's experiments at the Comedie as the model for his own recitative, a more or less "free" musical idiom was combined with the dramatic action of spoken tragedy. Sadowsky^ states that Lully's recitative was meant to provide a native French parallel to affective Italian music that would also be based upon the unique elements of the 1loc. cit., pp. 123-125. 2£ckofzer, Manfred P ., "Allegory in Baroque Music." Journal s£ Warpurg In s titu te . I l l (1939-1940), 2-4. 3sadowgky, op. c i t ., p. 128. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 French language. A reaffirmation of the connection of music to text is apparent, and this applies not only to a relationship of ausioal elements and the stereotyped international practices of Radnian decla mation) it also applies to a musical imitation of free pathetic rhythms and to a consideration of the passions of the te x t as the model fo r d ire c t musical im itation . Sadowsky' continues: "The Lullian recitative adapted the expressive materials of its declamatory model and transformed into musical terms the extreme vocal leaps, the pauses, the unexpected accents on off-beats and the changes in rhythm which had been intro duced for the expression of passions on the tragic stage. But • • • the earlier literature of the ajj; cour also con tained an entire vocabulary of musical-textual expressive devices which had fixed meanings in the portrayal of passion and which were at Lully's disposal for combination with the fixed meanings of the intonational practices at the Comedie*n After an extensive discussion of the techniques of Lullian affective im itatio n ,2 Sadowsky^ concludes: "Opera stands as a musical parallel to the contemporary ex pressive developments in the other arts, especially in French classical stage declamation. . . . Musical materials could combine with a two-fold theory of imitation: a ldirect* imi tation by purely musical means of images presented visually to the audience . . . or an ’indirect’ expression of mood or predominant affection." Thus does Lully provide an important, perhaps even the most important, ijnV between the French literary and rhetorical theory of Racine and the Port-Royalists and musical practice. The practice of Lully was codified by Lecerf in h is Comparison of 1705, and he adapts c la ssic a l 1loc. cit., p. 129. 2loc. cit., pp. 129-149. h.oo, cit., pp. 149-150. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tenets of the artistic "natural” and "expressive." Sentiment has no part of Lecerf’3 analysis; the expression must always be oratorical and pictorial*1 In discarding sentiment. lecerf must maintain that the musical set ting is not independently valid artistically, but is subordinate to the text whose affections it must intensify and complete. The correspon dence between word and tone must be so precise that the musical setting is an extension in tones of word meaning, image, or sound. Music, there fore, is allowed no independent role in affecting passions through its appeal to the senses, but must be joined to word image o r idea to give it affective significance. Wherever sensible pleasure is seen to con flict with the communication of passion to reason, sheer sonority and 2 the aural pleasure involved in its perception are de-emphasized* This view is a by-product of the adaptation of Cartesian philosophy into classical aesthetics, with a conscious disinvolvement with anything "non-rational."3 Beyond the fact that Lully undoubtedly borrowed from contemporary stage practices and from pre-existing musical elements in the French air de cour and ballet traditions for his operatic composition (and thus formed an artistic connection between the operatic genre and arts for which there already existed a developed set of theoretical concepts), Lecerf*s attempt to connect operatic composition narrowly to classical 1loc. cit., p. 159* 2loc. cit., pp. 159-161. ^Loc. c i t . , p. 166. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. literary aesthetics seems an. artificial construction. The belief in an expressive artistic goal is widespread by the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the portraying of more imprecise moods or abstract emotions had also made some impression on combined musical-literary theory. For French opera appeared on the artistic scene at the moment when an expres sive aesthetic was being formulated within the poetical-or&torioal tra dition, and music per se entered the theoretical sphere connected to a contentual or ideational model which was easily equated with either tex tu al o r ex tra-tex tu al affectio n s and passions. However, before a complete affective theory can be postulated, the purely sensible elements of music must be taken into account. Rameau In the second chapter* we have seen how the thought of Descartes was to have a profound influence on the course of literary and rhetorical history. As music theory was closely associated with the literary arts at this point in its own history, Carteslanism had no less an influence on its future. Buelow^ states that Les Passions de l 'aae in particular was perhaps the single most important and influential work of the seven teenth century in relation to musical theory and aesthetics. Descartes' rational codification of the "affections" as he believed they existed 1lo c . c i t . , pp. 174r*175. 2See Chapter I I , pp. 84-95. ^Buelow, George J . , "Music, Rhetoric, and the Concept of the Affec tio n s: A Selective Bibliography." Notes. XXX/2 (December 1973)» 252. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. t9 5 in the human body contributed to the baroque theorists' preoccupation with emotion as expounded by rhetorical doctrine* Ultimately, Descartes' philosophy of the passions became a foundation for German aesthetio thought* Lamy, basing his & Bien Parler on Cartesian mechanics, estab lished the validity of the judgment of the sense with reason operating as a critical faculty* The goal of this sense judgment is the recog nition of truth; for Lacy, as for others of the Port-Royal group, plea sure or beauty always partake of definite ethical or moral overtones* In his concept of passions as motions of the soul, Lamy is following D escartes’ tre a tis e on passions* But h is discussion of the mechanism of the effect of sound on the human organism is an adaptation of the 1 premises expounded in D escartes' early Compendium ntuslaes. Sadowsky^ asserts that the growing influence of Cartesian ideas on art theory may be the result of the disappearance of the salon from its position as arbiter of critical standards and tastes in mid-seven teenth century France. The outbreak of the Civil War in 1649 had suc ceeded in destroying the Hdtel ds Rambouillet, and when peace came in 1653, both the Marquise and her daughter were no longer living in Paris. The derivative salons seemed to be mere lite ra ry co teries and as such did not possess either the vitality or the following necessary to con tinue a strong creative influence on critical statements. After 1661, under Colbert’s influence, the number of academies 1Sadowsky, op* c it* , pp. 54-61* ^loc. cit., pp. 46-47. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 rapidly increased# but their existence did not depend on some loose connection to socially directed centers of arbitration. His goal# ac cording to Sadowsky,^ was an even closer relationship between the court and a l l phases of in te lle c tu a l l i f e . The monarchy was to be the u l ti mate arbiter# whether it was a question of Colbert's own academy (the Academic des Inscriptions founded in 1663)# the regulation of the meet ings of the Academia frangaise which were moved to the Louvre under Colbert's personal supervision, or the integration of French artists 2 and men of letters into the new economy. Sadowsky, in a lengthy dis cussion of the salon mentality prior to the Civil War and the later mentality of the academie. states that "the regimentation and enforcement of monarch!al principles seems a social and political parallel to what happens in the world of critic ism and le tte r s where there is an adaption of Cartesian principles. Cartesian!am serves as a governing principle to criticism# just as Colbertian statesmanship does to the academic movement after 1660." LeCoat^ notes th a t the so-called "Golden Age of Academia#" with its naive belief "that prescription literally followed insures good p rac tic e," actually began in the la s t decades of the Cinque cento. The methodical approach became apparent in the numerous tre a tis e s w ritten on the passions between 1580 and 16>40 by scholars of various areas of knowledge and theorists of the arts alike. Besides Mersenne's impor tant Hypqonle univeraelle ( 1636)# such studies included Lomazzo's ^loco cit#, p. 47* ^loc. c it# , pp. 4-7-48. ^LeCcat, op. cite# pp. 21-22. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 "Della forza a efflcaoia del moti" in his Trattato ge la olttura (1584.) > Giovanni Battista Della Porta's Fjsiognomioa (1585), Pierre de la Priaaudaye's Academic franydse. (1587), Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1593), Nicolas Cofiffeteau's Tableau gee passions hnmainA« (1615), Pierre Lemoynes’s Pelntures morales. S3i 1&& Eftflgfofflg XgE£afi£&Jt£&8 2§£ tableaux (1640), and Senault's De l 1 usage des passions (1641), These vorkBdemonstrate the growing significance of the French contribution to aesthetics and the overlapping of the arts and sciences: Senault was a physician, Mersenne a physicist, a theologian, and a philosopher. Yet they were both deeply interested in the creative process and exerted a tremendous influence on artists of all disciplines. The influence of seventeenths century French thought, as definitively stated by Descartes and Lamy, is easily seen in the work of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). Mailers'1 notes that there were two main aspects of Rameau's theory, the first of which dealt with the mechanics of music. The principal purpose of this was to offer scientific backing to the pro gressive techniques of the day—to estab lish the dominance o f harmonic thought and diatonic tonality. When Rameau states that "melody is boro of harmony," it is because the practice of his time seemed to prove that any melody implies its own harmonization. This does not mean that melody is any less important as an aspect of musical expression; however, it does mean that if people such as Diderot and Rousseau cannot appreciate the dependence of a good melody on i t s implied harmony the fa u lt lie s in their ears. Rameau established the pre-eminence of the major and 1 Qrova'a Dictionary o£ MflgAg s.v . "Rameau," by Wilfrid H. Mellers. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 minor triad by deriving them from the harmonic series and from combina tion tones; he rationalized the principle of building up dissonances by the superposition of thirds; and he demonstrated to his own and to his contemporaries' satisfaction the logic of the cycle of fifths. The second aspect of Rameau's theoretical work deals with the re lation between the progressive technique and the expressive purpose for A which it was intended. For Rameau1 both harmony and tonality have pre cise expressive functions: "It is certain that harmony can arouse var ious passions within us, depending on the chords which we employ* There are sad, languishing, tender, agreeable, gay, and surprising chords; there is also a specified sequence of chords to express particular passions." And his system of tonality and modulation is deliberately planned with reference to the expressive function of keys. Although a firm upholder of the progressive system of equal temperament, he believed that each key had its peculiar, expressive aptitude. The basis of the tonal scheme is the architectural relationship between tonic, dominant, and subdomlnant in the major; in the Suiior between to n ic and r e la tiv e major. Modulation towards the dominant and sharp keys implies an in crease in animation and joy; modulation towards the subdomlnant and flat keys means an increase in gloom or intensity. Moments of exceptional drama are usually accompanied by a modulation to the sixth degree of the scale. Paralleling these three types of modulations are the tiiree types of cadences, perfect, plagal, and "rompue," respectively, with corres ponding expressive attributes.3 1ib id . 2ib id . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Rameau does not attempt to systematize melodic procedure in the same way; nonetheless, his practice demonstrates that his treatment of melodic intervals follows the same expressive principles as does his harmony.1 In the early Traite de 11 harraonie. he does distnguish melody as the element in music which appeals directly to the passions through the ear and which rises "naturally” from whatever passions are to be expressed. But the disposition or creation of an expressive melody l ie s outside any regulated system. Melody i s under the auspices of the composer's sensibility, genius, or bon gout* and no precise rules can be abstracted from practice for its creation* 2 Rameau's construction of an art of musical composition is firmly grounded on classical-Cartesian tradition, in spite of his recognition of the relationship between sensibility, melody, and the correct expres sion of passions in performance practices. His avowed aim is ”1' expres sion de la pensee, du sentiment, des p a s s i o n s ,”3 and in this aim he is aided by two separate aesthetio-phllosophic&l traditions* One is the CajrtttHiian-bassd concept of discovering relationships in the natural world of matter in motion which held true for all natural phenomena of which a r t i s the imitation* Thus every element of rhythm and harmony may bo attributed affective qualities on so-called "natural" acoustico- sc ie n tifio grounds* However, he i s also aided by the tra d itio n a l text-anisic connection, 1ib id . %adowsky, op* cit*, p. 264* ^loc* o it* , pp* 268-270* with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 where the textual model provides not only the content and the pathetic intonations necessary for the placing of the melodic line, bat also the broad framework for a musical grammar or rhetoric* SadowskyV notes that if one joins to the concept of a musical grammar a close affective rela tionship between textual idea and separate music elements like keys, harmonies, intervals, and rhythms, it is easy to see how indeed a cata logue of “natural" relationships between model and imitation may theo retically be established* This, then, is the crux of the affective theory of the Baroque: a fusion of the precepts of oratory, whose roots extend back to human istic literary expression, to the doctrine of the passions* Neither o alone is sufficient to explain the art of the Baroque. Waite asserts that Lamy is the man responsible for this fusion; Rameau is the first to apply the combination to the musical art* It is this dual emphasis which makes tracing the "genealogy" of Affektenlehre so difficult* So often, writers unfamiliar with certain branches of the family tree are inclined to over-emphasize others—those who claim that Figurenlehrs simply developed into Affektenlehre. for instance, must surely be un aware of the Cartesian influence* Nor is the Baroque's affective theory merely a natural development of Renaissance word-painting, another oft- cited thesis* And theories of the passions alone could not have flowered into the Baroque's most precious blossom. Rhetoric and Cartesianism gave birth to a doctrine which, although resembling both, was also totally 1ib id . % a ite , "Bernard Lamy," op. c it* , pp. 388-389* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission 201 nev, with its own unique characteristics. Lang1 states: "We are dealing here with the conception and classification of music which is neither mathematical-symbolical, like that of the Middle Ages • * • , nor fom al-em pirioal, lik e th a t of the Italians, but an aesthetic conception which attempts to range the musical phenomena according to established laws of evaluation and appraisals The measure was supplied by the doctrine of the affections." There now was an affective theory which was composed of three intertwin ing trends: the humanistic-rhetorical, the rational-passionate, and the mnsical-sensible. It would find maturity in UltD viiwugitv Of the German Johann Mattheson, even as the Enlightenment va 3 destroying the tra d itio n upon which i t was based. The Influence of French Theory on Germany Two primary cultural Influences shaped the new directions taken in Germany during the late Baroque period. First, the fashions of con duct of the French nobility were adopted by almost every aspiring petty prince. Louis XIV was given the rank of a minor diaty, states Harriss,2 and the galant aesthetic promulgated at his court came to be very persua sive. Second, the systematic deductive method of Descartes came increas- 3 lngly to be the mode for organization of thought. 4 Lang, op. c i t . , p. 4-33. 2Harriss, Ernest Charles, "Johann Mattheson* s Dg£ Vollkommene Capell- m elster: A Translation and Commentary." Unpublished d o cto r's d isse rta tio n , George Peabody College fo r Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1969, 154-1* 3Cannon, Beekaaa C«, Johann Mattheson: Spectator jn Music. New Haven: Yale U niversity Press, 1947. Reprinted Arohon Books, 1968, v i ii . See also Lenneberg, Hans, "Johann Mattheson on Affect and Rhetoric in Music." Journal of Music Theory. II (1958)- 47. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 One example of a parallel to French thought in contemporary German theory Is the work of Johann Kuhnau1 (1660-1722), the greatest composer of keyboard music before Bach* Bukofzer^ notes that Kuhnau distinguishes in his Vorstellungen elniger biblischen Hlstorlen (1700) between two kinds of "program-music." In the first, a psychological approach is taken when something in nature or art is presented: "und dieses geschieht entweder also, dass der ZuhBrer die gehabte Intention des Komponisten bald merken kann, auch wenn sie mit Worten nicht angedeutet worden 1 st. Venn man z.B, den Gesang der V“gel, das Glockengelfiute, den Kanonen- knall oder auf einem Instrument das andere nachahmt; vie man auf dem Klavier die Trompeten oder Pauken im itie rt." This is a mere question of sound, something which can be apprehended by the ear. By the second type Kuhnau^ means what Bukofzer c a lls musical allegory, which requires an intellectual process of interpretation: "Oder aber man z ie h lt auf eine Analogiam und ric h te t die musikalischen sRtze also ein, dass sie in aliquo tercio mit der vorgestellten Sache sich vergleichen lassen. Und da sind die Worte allerdings nfltig." Kuhnau then procedes to give some -typical examples of such allegories: "Also praesentlere ich das Schnarchen und Fochen des Goliath durch das tiefe Thema und das ilbrige Gepolter. Die Flucht der Fhilister und das Nacheilen der Israeliten durch eine Fuga mit geschvinden Noten, da die Stimmen einander bald nachfolgen* Ebenso praesentiere ich den Betrug Labans durch die Verftthrung des GehBrs, nSmlich durch eine unvermutete Fort schreitung von einem Tono zu einem anderen. Und gehBrt in solchen Fallen eine gfitige Interpretation darzu." These views match those of French theorists at the turn of the century and indicate how in te lle c tu a lly a composer of the Baroque con- ISadowsky, op* c it« , p. 175* ^Bukofzer, op. cit*. p. 19. 3ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 0 3 ceived his musical program; for instance, when he presents the fraud of Laban by a sudden modulation whose only object is to deceive the ear. Kuhnau, lik e Rameau, allows both sensible and ratio n al approaches to affective imitation to be ranged side by sila. Heinichen During this period we again find two currents of thought ir music theory. One of these currents, reactionary in content and ture* sum marized once more the classic-medieval elements; the other tendency was progressive and seems remarkably advanced even in this forward-looking period. While the first school of thought offered the professional- formal side of the musician's craft in a naive and uncritical fashion, the rationalism of the Enlightenment invited reflection and reasoning in the second. Although seemingly irreconcilable, both schools had * certain things in common.1 Among the leading exponents of the first school we find Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), one of the greatest composers of the late Baroque, and Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1708), musician and mathematician- better known for his work in furthering the cause of correct tuning. Werck meister* s musical conceptions still rest, to a considerable extent, on purely medieval precepts; hence his extensive mathematical-musical speculations. To him music is scientia and in his writings we again meet with the Boethian ratio and sen sue. Lang^ notes that 1Lang, op. c i t . , p. 437. 2ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204 allegorical, mystical, and astrological discussions and theses, rather strange in this period, abound. The second school was headed by the Saxon court conductor, Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729), whose w ritings, highly esteemed in h is time, remain sound and useful readings today and are one of the chief sources of the doctrine of the affections. To quote Lang,”* "The picture that confronts us on these lively pages differs sharply from the one painted by the exponents of the other school. Heinichen*s tirades against the ancients sound like the radical diatribes of the modernists. He berates their 'so-called sense and judgments,' and their * overwhelming and exagerated metaphysical contemplations'; all that matters is ‘how the music sounds and how the listeners like i t ,1 and it is immaterial how it looks on paper. With this we en counter a new criterion, the taste and approval of the public, and, indeed, the French term godt now makes its first appear ance in musical literature. There is mention of French and Italian gout. goUt der Welt, or 'universal taste,1 which would be a 'happy mixture* of a ll sty les, unmistakably an idea of the rationalistic Enlightenment." Heinichen*s Der General-Bass in der Composition (1728) contains not only the most complete study of thorough-bass practice in the late Baroque, but also important information regarding the nature of affect in operatic music. This emphasis is included because Heinichen thought composers of his and preceding generations had only an imperfect under standing of affect: "What a bottomless ocean we s till have before us merely in the expression of words and the affects in music. And how delighted is our ear, if we perceive in a well-written church composition or other music how a skilled composer has attempted here and there to move the emotions of an audience through his refined and text-related musical expression, and in this way successfully finds the true purpose of music," ^loc. cit., pp. 437-438. ^Buelow, George J . , "The 'LociTopioi* and Affect in Late Baroque Music: Heinichen*s Practical Demonstration." Music Review. XXVII (1966), 162. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 According to Buelow,^ Heinichen views composing e ssen tially as the discovery of appropriate musical ideas to which the composer applies his craft. This immediately suggests a rhetorically-based concept of inven tion, and Heinichen indeed suggests that the student seek the affect of words in the inventlo. just as classical books on rhetoric prescribe the inventlo as the first step in building an oration. Thus, for Heinichen, the locus tonicus becomes a p rac tic al aid to invention, ju s t as i t had been fo r A risto tle 2000 years e a rlie r. Heinichen* s terminology is similar to descriptions of the lo.cl tools! which appear in every book on rhetoric published in Germany in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His concern for affect and the application of rhetorical devices began during his student days in Leipzig (a similar though briefer account of affect and the topics is also found in the earlier version of Heinichen* s treatise published in 1711 as Neu-erfuadene und grtbdliche Anweisung . . . jgu vollkommener Erlernung des General-Basses) and is a part of his German heritage. This application of rhetorical devices underscores the close affinity between Heinichen and Italian art theory, a theory which, unlike that of Prance, was still closely allied with ancient rhetoric. French theorists, because of the peculiarities of their language, evolved totally new modes of discourse and logic which eventually influenced the course of their aesthetics. Italian rhetoric, on the other hand, although incorporating certain aspects of French thinking, remained more closely associated 1 ib id . 2lo c. c i t . , p. 163. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 with its past, first, because the Italian language was a direct descendant of the Latin of the ancients, and second, because of a general distrust of the new French ra tio n a l methods* The three c itie s in which Heinichen studied and worked were focal points for many of the distinguished musical events of the era and were part of the mainstream of German Baroque music: Leipzig, Venice, and Dresden. Leipzig, where Heinichen studied from 1696 to 1710, reached a peak of musical productivity in the eighteenth century which it never sur passed. Two of its institutions were to have a profound Influence on Heinichen’s life: the Thomasschule and the University of Leipzig. He enrolled in the Thomasschule in 1696 a t the age of th irtee n and began his studies not with the cantor Johann Schelle, but with the organist of the Thomaskirche, Kuhnau. Heinichen was among tha fortunate few at the Thomasschule, for he gained special attention from Kuhnau as his assistant, and was made responsible for copying and correcting his manu scripts. Heinichen was the first student with a superior musical gift for composition to come to Kuhnau, and he had a resourceful mind and was apparently interested in theoretical matters from the first. The concept of a ’’musical circle” for relating all major and minor tonalities origi nated while he was a harpsichord student with Kuhnau, for example.^ Heinichen became a law student at Leipzig's university in 1702, eventually qualifying for the profession of a lawyer, a preparation often ^Buelow, George J. , Thorough-Bass Accompaniment according to J o h a n n David Heinichen. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1966, 4-5. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207 favored by eighteenth-century musicians. Music was not a separate uni versity curriculum but was bound together in the humanistic concept of a r t e 3 liberales. the seven liberal arts of the trivium and quadrlvlum. At Leipzig this old tradition of intellectual development remained in force for a longer period in the Baroque than it did in many other European universities where music had become a subject for aillettantes A and unsuitable for scientific study. Buelow points out that disserta tions written at the University of Leipzig during this time often connected music to non-musical subjects such as physics, mathematics, history, and particularly theology, a good indication that music was stressed frequently in the lectures given in these subjects. It was the contribution of university students which allowed Leipzig to become one of the few German cities with an opera house before 1700, and it was from M s experiences with the opera that Heinichen first discovered the "theatrical style" described in detail in the General-Bass. In 1710, Heinichen made the traditional pilgrimage to Italy, tradi tional for German Baroque composers, that is. It was in Italy that many of the roots of the German Baroque were anchored, and its magnetism at tracted many generations of German musicians: Hassler, Froberger, Schfltz, Handel, and Hasse were among the most important. While in Venice, he became a great success as an opera composer; proving vividly how fully 2 Heinichen was able to assim ilate Italian elements of music into his style. The Prince-Elector of Saxony arrived in Venice in 1716, and Heinichen 1loc. c it., pp. 6-7. 2loc. cit., pp. 3, 8-11. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. composed as a birthday gift a special cantata performed in front of the Prince's apartment. Undoubtedly impressed as much as the citiseas of Venice, he engaged Heinichen as Capellmeister to serve his father and the royal court at Dresden; Heinichen left Venice for his new post in 1717.^ Dresden was also a musically significant center in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. Walther, LeMaistre, Scandello, and Schutz were among the figures who dominated music in Dresden until the middle of the seventeenth century when a period of decline set in. However, the ascent in 1693 of E lector Friedrich August to the Saxon throne marked the beginning of a revitalization, both political and cul tural. For example, in 1717, the year of Heinichen's arrival, the son of August I engaged an entire Italian opera company under the direction of Antonio Lotti to move to Dresden. In 1728 Heinichen published at his own expense the General-Bass: in 1729 he died of tuberculosis which had 2 attacked him several years earlier. Buelow^ notes that since the mid-eighteenth century, Heinichen as th e o rist and composer has been larg ely forgotten, an obscurity which deprives musicians concerned with Baroque performance practices of a most comprehensive source of instruction and practical demonstrations: "The complex s k ill of thorough-bass re a liz a tio n , with i t s profusion of ru les and often equally numerous exceptions, was an integral part of a composer's craft. That the device should assume such importance resu lted n a tu rally in a musi cal era dominated by stress on the bass-melody framework in H b id. 2loc. cit., pp. 11-13. ^loc. cit., pp. 261-262. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209 all forms of music. But even the most clairvoyant oonodist or early Italian opera composer, who had abandoned Renais sance polyphonic conventions, could not have foreseen the extent to which the thorough-bass would infiltrate every form of Baroque musical expression. What the monodists thought to be a simple technique connected with their revi v a l of Greek drama spawned an a r t so in tric a te in i t s fin a l stages that Heinichen, in describing it, filled more than a thousand pages with rules and examples." Contrapuntal music became one of Heinichen*s favorite targets for barbs of criticism. His criticism was aimed particularly at stereotyped contrapuntal devices which were a part of every second-rate church musician* s composing techniques, composers he preferred to call* arch contrapuntists "who seek the Summum bonum or the entire art of music in the study of counterpoint only." This removes Heinichen from the main- stream of North-German musical sty le—Kuhnau, Buxtehude, Bflhm, and, of course, J.S. Bach. Heinichen*s bitter attack on counterpoint and all the artificialities of composing he felt characterized German music represents a symptom of the gradual d isin teg ratio n of Baroque sty le into the style gsfegit.2 Mattheson Heinichen* s insistence that the only true aim of music is to stir the affects reminds one of the similar goal adopted by Johann Mattheson^ (1681-1764) as his battle cry: Alles. was ohne iBbllche Affpctea gg>- aehlehet. heisst nlchts. ifesfc S&S&fe BiSkiS* W ^8 no documentation ^loc. cit., pp. 266-267. 2lo c. c i t . , p. 268. ^loc. cit., p. 266, citing Mattheson, CapeUroeister 146. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 exists to show that these two great German musicians were personal friends* a tone of fam iliarity in Heinichen* s references in the General-Bass to his Hamburg colleague suggests something more than purely professional contacts. With the exception of the Grosae General"Bass-Schule (17JI )> KLeine General-Bass-Schule (1735), and Der vollkommene Capellmeister (172-9), a ll of Mattheson* s important works appeared during Heinichen* s residence in Venice or Dresden. These are cited in Heinichen.1 s second version and include Das neu-erflffnete Orchestra (1713), Das faeschtttzte Orchestra (1717), Exemplar!sche Organisten-Probe (1719), Dag fprschende Orchestre (1721), and Gritioa Musica. a periodical issued between 1722 and 1725. Heinichen mentions the Organ!sten-Probe no less than six times, a statistic of high praise from an author who limited his quotations from other sources to a minimum. Mattheson in turn reaped enormous profit from Heinichen* s highly original discussions centering around the thorough bass and the a ffe c ts, and Heinichen's s p ir it haunts both the Grosse. •j General-Bass-Schule and De£ vollkommene Capellro&lgter. 2 Mattheson, born in 1681, belongs to an age that, as Cannon puts it, at the very moment of its decline, seemed to put forth all its strength into "one last effort to procure some final form for human thought, some perfect skill for man’s deed." His birth occurred within a decade that was to confer extraordinary distinction upon the history of music: Francesco Durante, Domenico Scarlatti, Francesco Feo, Niccolo Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Jean Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph ^loc. cit., pp. 275-276. ^Cannon, op. c i t . , p. v ii. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 Graupner, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Handel were a ll born between 1680 and 1690. Together with these Mattheson represents the la s t generation of Baroque musicians* During Mattheson1 s lifetim e, German music exhibited a singular lack of unity, both in style and intention. It is so diverse that it can in no way be considered the outgrowth of an unbroken, steadily developing ideal* At the same time, the extreme in d iv id u ality of i t s spokesmen was at continual variance with the general state of musicianship throughout Germany itself. Mattheson knew this, and tried to eliminate the discrep ancy, or at least mitigate it. The older he grew, the more he became concerned with the welfare of German music* Cannon states: nHe made every effort to absorb the total output of musical thought in a ll fie ld s of musical knowledge* He studied English literature extensively, from the advantageous point of view of secretary to the English Resident in Hamburg. He studied French literature, philosophical and musical, and became one of the most eloquent advocates of Descartes' phi losophy. He translated French treatises, reshaped them, combined them with Ita lia n works and with German tra d itio n , and thus presented to German musicians a complex and rounded knowledge which should have eliminated a good bit of their backwardness* He studied the Italians, reacted sensitively to their artistic achievements, examined the best of their literature, translated again, and tried to reconcile their ideas to German concepts.w For example, Mattheson cited works by Bayle, Bonnct-Bourdelot, Boyer, Brossard, Crousaz, Descartes, Dodart, Fux, La Mothe Is Vayer, Menage, Rameau, Rousseau, and Sauvear, just to mention the French, in Capell meister* Thus Mattheson presents us with a unique opportunity to view O an age in its entirity and its finality. 1loe. cit., p. viii. ^Harriss, op. c it., pp. 1522-1534. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 Mattheson reached his literary and musical peak with Per voUlcom- mene C>|i»ni»i star. in which he attempted to impart in detail all the practical, theoretical, historical, and philosophical wisdom which had concerned him for many years* It is a product of his earlier works and 1 serves as a summarizing consummation of h is p rac tic al w ritings on music. Music has two basic aim for Mattheson. First, music must honor God, and a ll musical devices available are to be employed toward th is end.^ Second, music should please and stir the listener, and Mattheson^ notes that "one must select before others those inventions which help in this and must use them with prudence." Mattheson continues and in tensifies his efforts to delineate the role of mathematics in music as that of a means rather than an end and to indicate the small significance that mathematical calculations have for actual musical practice.4 The book itself is divided into three sections and an introduction. The introduction contains two fundamental musical beliefs of Mattheson. These are his belief in the importance of church music as a means of worshipping God, and h is b e lie f in melody as the basis fo r a l l musical learning and composition, which he sums up briefly: "Alles muss gehSrig singen.n The first part of the treatise deals with basic musical elements, such as: "Vom KLange an sich selbst, und von der musikalischen Natur- ^loc. c i t . , pp. 1567-1568. 2ibid. %oc. cit., pp. 459-460. 4loc. cit., p. 1568. 5Cannon, op. cit., p. 200. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 Lehre"; "Voa Mathemati schen Verhalt oder klingenden Intervallc"2 "Von der Geberden-Kunst," etc* The second part is entirely devoted to the elements of melodic learning and is based essentially on the 1737 Kern melodischer mflsflnHnfydt. Having outlined the method and principles of writing a single melody, Mattheson turns in the third section to the principles governing more complex composition, which includes the tradi tional rules of counterpoint among others. At the conclusion, three chapters deal with such practical considerations as the construction of instruments, "die Spielkunst," and "Die Regierung An- Auf- und Ausffihrung einer Musik.1,2 Since he approached composition from a melodic point of view, one finds that Mattheson does not seem to have grasped the significance of Rameau's w ritings on harnrcny. Mattheson s t i l l explains harmony as the result of simultaneously sounding melodies, and he justifies his theories with references to such classical writers as Plato, despite his attacks on outmoded musical practices. To Mattheson, the melody i s the body of music and the beat of its soul; harmony is merely the clothing.3 Of great importance is the very extensive catalogue of communicative musical devices. Mattheson,^ too, felt this to be important* "Many will think here that we have already used such things and fig ures fo r so long without knowing what they are called or what thoy mean that we can hence be content and put rhe toric aside. These seem even more ridiculous to me than the 1Harriss, op. cit., p. 1568. 2 Cannon, op. c i t ., p. 200 ^Harriss, op. cit., p. 1569. ^loc. cit., pp. 774-776. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 Bourgeois l e n t i l * homiae of MOLIEHE who did not know th a t i t was a pronoun when he said I , YOU, BE o r th a t i t was an im perative when he 3aid to his servants COME HEBEI "In the past, our learned musicians have compiled whole hooks, in the usual institutional manner, merely on vocal ornaments* • • • This has been dealt with in the third chapter of this p a rt. "However, since things change almost yearly • • • , thus in part one considers such writings sympathetically* • • • These can be read not without usefulness." Mattheson thought music was a form of sound-speech (j&ang-Rede) which is manifest both by vocal and instrumental forms* He found it easier, however, to employ sound-speech for vocalists than for instrumentalists.^ Mattheson developed a highly refined rational structure of formal devices in music. He established a musical rhetoric which was patterned a fte r the nomenclature and formal devices of grammar. He thought th a t good grammar and rhetoric were as essential to good musical composition as they were fo r good expression with the verbal forms. However, he repeatedly stated that it is not the words alone but the words together 2 with the music which create the total effect. In Part II, Chapter IV of flflpftiJjTOAfoter. Mattheson provides the most comprehensive discussion of the loci topicl in music in the eighteenth century.^ Bukofzer^ considers this discussion the most musically fecund and indicative in its critical approach of the coming of the age of the 1lo c. c i t . , p. 1570. ^loc. c i t . , p. 1571. 3Bukofzer, "Allegory," op. cit., p. 5. 4-Bukofzer, Manfred, Muslo the Baroque Bra. New York: tf.W. Norton, 1947, 388. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. enlightenment. Writing in the first half of the eighteenth century, Mattheson takes a critical view of musical allegory, although, according the Bukofaer,^ he still accepts the standards of Baroque music. He criticises the term locus to pious as a pleonasm and suggests that it should be replaced by locus dialect!cus. He discusses at length the locus notation!s and the locus descrlptionls. The former signifies the elaboration of a composition by imitating the purely musical elements in the form of inversions, canons, fugues, etc. The latter is for him? "die sicherste und vesentlichste Handleitung zur Invention," and deal with the depiction of extra-musical ideas through metaphorical and al legorical figures and similes. Such things as these were intimately related with the substance of the musical craft and were of very high significance.3 The Baroque rhetoric sometimes seems to obscure for the modern mind some of the more universal human characteristics.^ Harriss^ sta te s: "In short, Mattheson was attempting a synthesis through rationalistic methods of those aspects of the human charac ter which are most incompatible with the requirements of a highly structured, lo g ical design. The systematic method for arousing the passions and affects which Mattheson designed is nonetheless rather typical of the elaborate categorizing and complex designs so widely m anifest in Baroque Europe." ^Bukofzer, "Allegory," op. cit., pp. 5-6. 2ib id . ^Bukofzer, Music is i£e Baroque Bra, op. cit., p. 388. ^Harriss, op. cit., p. 1573* 5loc. c it., pp. 1573-1574. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 Conclusion Prom the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War to the beginning of the eighteenth century the reconstruction of German cultural life was connected almost exclusively with religious expression and thought. In neither Catholic nor Protestant Germany was the post-Heformation period characterized by that decline in the importance and strength of religious idealism which was evident throughout the rest of Europe. The xntelle<>- tual life of France and England in the second half of the seventeenth century was conspicuous fo r the increasing number and predominance of secular systems of ideas, interpretations of existence, and forms of art. With the beginning of the eighteenth century these forces had be come so supreme as to bear down all opposition to the institutions and habits of thought inherited from earlier times. As the result of this "Enlightenment" the spiritual idealism of the past was superceded by an attitude of rational scepticism.^ In Germany, during i t s own Aufkllrung. these ideas were met and opposed by the innate strength of traditional beliefs, and became changed and absorbed by the existing doctrines of German Protestantism.and Catholicism. The "classicism" of Haydn, Mozart, and the young Beethoven, and that of Goethe and Schiller at the end of the century were the last expression of these ideaB. It is in this way that the German Aufkllrung may be said to differ from the French or English Enlightenment. It is natural that a movement of such scope should profoundly affect the aesthe tic, both practical and theoretical, of all the arte. And it was the 1 Cannon, op. c i t . , pp. lx -x . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 task of Mattheson to attempt to clarify the effect of the Enlightenment and absorb its concepts into his own view of German music*1 Beginning with Mattheson the philosophical and empirical leanings of the Enlightenment began to displace the many medieval notions s till extant in earlier Baroque musical thought* In his first work, Das new- eyBffnete Orchestra of 1713> the tendency to turn to the educated music lover Instead of tc the professional musician is apparent; the universally cultured man, the folapt homme. becomes the adressee of dissertations* The new aim is to enable the educated man to "form his tastes, under stand the technical terms, so that he can discuss this noble science with understanding,"2 not to justify new findings by reconciling them with ancient doctrines or to introduce musicians into the art and science of musical composition* There were those who attacked galant music as superficially based and asserted that one must have correct knowledge (especially the know ledge of the mathematical bases for music) before he can properly be called a musician. They promulgated a theoretical, spiritual foundation for music while Mattheson’s was practical and earthbound. This was the great philosophic antithesis of the eighteenth century: Rationalism and Empiricism. Mattheson tended to be an empiricist.^ Lang4 notes that during this period, the voice of irrationalism, 1loc. cit., pp. x-xi. Lang, op. c it* , p. 44-0. 3Harriss, op. cit., p. 1554. 4-Lang, op. c i t . , p. 585* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the protest of intuitively creating artists* was raised against the dog matic and abstract-scientific attitude of theoreticians and philosophers of music, as had been the case in literature* Mattheson1 s Das forschende Orchestra has as its first part a vindication of the senses; he saw them as active participants in the artistic process.^ Mattheson considered music not a science of harmony and measurements, but the a r tis tic ex pression of sentiments, and added^ that "even instrumental music should never be lacking in emotion." Lang^ sta te s: "The last vestiges of the psychological doctrine of the af fections remained to the end of the century, at a time when the style galant and the were being condensed in the classical style of the Viennese school. But since the doctrine of the affections was the 'nervous center1 of the baroque, it could not properly fu lfill the same function in a style and conception of music which was turning against the baroque; moreover* i t had ceased to be a method of aesthe tics and a well-regulated science which could be taught and applied in practice." Baroque mentality established an atmosphere universally shared and understood. But the art of the Empfindsamkelt. the mincing of music into small particles, changed the meaning and usefulness of the affective system, ^ This tendency to endow every small detail with life, expression, and a specific affection, combined with the older logical, more stead fast style in a balanced unity which produced between 1780 and 1810 ^Harriss, op. cit., p. 1554* ^Lang, op. c it* , p* $85. 3loc. cito, p. 586. 4ibid. with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219 what Lang1 calls "a sublimely perfect musical culture." Not only was the Baroque breaking down in German culture, but i t was also losing ground in France as well. Sadowsky^ points out that by the 1760's, theories of music as an art of imitation and/or expression had grown to contain several disparate elements in France. On the one side were the theorists of sensibility, who can be traced back through Dubos to Lamy, who sought the expressive powers of music in the identity of the materials of the art with natural pathetic sounds. This position clearly goes way beyond the old concept of rhetoric and points to the future acceptance of instrumental music. Separate froa this group were the theorists who maintained significative or ideational concepts of music which were related to opera and Cartesian thought, and hence a modernization of the old rhetorical tradition. However, Lully and Rameau were eventually replaced as popular idols, and other spokesmen arose to create a new aesthetic of music. The theories of the French Baroque were no longer viable in this new aesthetic, and thus fell out of favor.^ The change can perhaps be expressed in Bukofzer's^ words! "music no longer maqnt. this or that emotion; it was itself the immediate expression of th a t emotion," This tra n sitio n from " i t means" to " i t is" marks the transition from baroque style to its successor, the classic-romantic sty le. H oc. c i t . , p. 587. ^Sadowsky, op. c i t . , pp. 25A-255. Hoc. cit., pp. 277-278. ^Bukofzer, "Allegory," op. c it., pp. 20-21 * Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission APPENDIX: BIGHT DIVISIONS OF RHETORIC The Divi cions o f Hhetoric in the Rhetorica ad Harennium The Three Kinds of Demonstrative Praise o r blame th a t may be given Oratory (occasional) to a particular person or persons. Deliberative Counsel to persuade or dissuade the (political) audience with respect to a par ticular course of action. Ju d ic ia l Accusation or defence with respect (forensic) to the lav* The Divisions of Inventio The amassing of one's material Rhetoric which consists of things to dis cuss which are true or probably tru e. Dlflpositlo The arrangement of one's material. Elocutio The clothing of one's material in suitable words and phrases. Memorla The a rt of remembering a speech. frSSBPCrf-afei The art of delivery, by voice and gesture. The Parts of a Exordium The beginning whose purpose i s to Speech Proemiop prepare the audience to listen with interest. N arratio The exposition of pertinent topics, deeds and events. When one explains what is particu larly relevant to one's case and the exact nature of one's case. Ps?p&m*iip The argument to support one's point of view. Confutatio The dismissal of arguments against one's point of view. Concluslo The artistic finish to a speech. The Divisions of The Three Kinds Gravis (supra), mediooils, and Elocutio of Style atteguata (bundle). Bxomationes Figures that affect only the words. .•ffiEfegaffi ESBSBa&SBSfi Figures which vary not only the sententiarum words but the sense. 10 special These are the tropes* exomationes verbo rum (Sonnino, op. cit., p. 243.) 220 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 Elocutionis Virtutes et Vitia Latinitas (correctness) Perspicuitas (clarity) e electio (choice of vocabulary) in verbis singulis '-tropi (attribution of special meanings to words) f elocutionis (figures of word) Ornatusf figurae vsententiae (figures of thought) {soluta •in verbis coniunctius perpetua •composition / ordo \ iunctura (euphony) ^numerus (rhythm) Aptum (appropriateness) (Scaglione, op. cit., p. 20.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 Q u in tilian 1 s D ivision o f E locutio in to Tropes and Schemes The Tropes f Translatio I Subintellectio Transmutatio Pronoxninatio Nominatio Abusio Transumptio Appositum Inversio Illu sio Ir ris io Urbanitas Negando Proverbiuxa Dissimulatio Transgreesio •Dementiens The Schemes/1Figurae Figures of the mind, feeling or conception sentential (dianoias) Figurae Figures of words, diction, expressions verbonua language or style (lexeos) (Sonnino, op, cit,, p, 244*) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 Trapessuntius1 Division of Rhetoric Inventio fExordio 1 Narratio < Divisio '-Gonfutatio°} 11x6 msttods of rhetorical argument Qispositio ( Demonstrative -Praise or blame. The speech is perfected by the rules of a r t. Deliberative -To persuade or dissuade according to the merits of one's case and the necessities of the time. ■Judicial -Legal. I t has two p a rts, accusation and defence. Me maria f Artificial ( Natural Elocutio fFiguras oration!s -The three kinds of style \ Formas dicendi -The figures Pronunciato (Sonnino, op. c it., p. 244-») Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 Tabula D ivisionis Locrum of Bartholomew Latomus, a fte r Rodolphus Agricola D efinltlo f Genus Species Proprium Totum Substantiae Partes {Quailtatis Coniuguta V irtu tis ’Intern! Cireum sub- Adiacentia stantiam (Actus Subiectum f E fficiens Loci- ' Gaussae 1 Finis ^Cognata Effectum v Eventa { Destination Locus A pplicita (Tenants E xtem i Connexa /Antecedentia f Contingent la j Adiuncta Accidentia 1 Nomen rei V Consequentia / Pronunciata r Pari a / Comparata i Maiora \ Sim ilia v Minora '•Repugnantia fO pposite V Diverse (Ong, Ramus* op* c it* , p* 127.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 Ramus' Division of the Places of Dialectic r notatio nondnis coniugata t causa ( feffectum subiectum V. adiunctum prima 1 r simplicia contraria “dissentanea ( ^ r e i repugnantia * paria in s ita « I maiora »comparata I minora I similia INVENTIO '•dlssimilia arguments /definitio (loci) Vorta a primis] vdistributio .divnum »assumpta, ut testimonium! vhumanum (Ong, op. cit., p. 201.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 The Rand.stic Division of Rhetoric by Fraune* f Transmutatio Metonymy or change o f name f Occupatio n iu sio i \]•Praecisio Tropes t Hyperbole ( Translatio < ‘Metaphor and synecdoche < '•Allegory Elocutio >* Subintellectio In the word /v e rse o r metre Iof repetition ‘Figures •In the sentence f in speech alone (.in conferring with others Pronunciato (Sonnino, op. cit., p. 241.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 Scaliger’s Division of the Figures of Rhetoric Tropes /"Fractatio To describe things so vividly as to place them before the eyes of the hearer or reader. f T ractatlo J Imago I Siailitudo V Conparatio Hyperbole Excess, whether the meaning exceeds the fact or the passage is outside the basic form of the w'rk. Dsmentiens i ttLgressio T ransitio E cllp sis When the figure works by omission. f Circumlocutio I Emphasis / In v itio 1 Extenu&tio I Aversio \ Prohibitio A llegoria ( Apologue / Fable ( Myth \ Proverb Ironia When the words are contrary to the sense. I r r is io ( Vexatio Negatio Figures f By their nature / omissionNegando V Interpellatioaddition Admonitio According to their Eposition rror ( Disorder I Parenthesis J Division and rearrangement VAdjunctio (zeugma) By reason of number or quantity ■ By reason of sound f Sim iliter cadens v Rhyme (Sonnino, op. cit., p. 245*) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Rhetorical Sources Anon. (pseudo-Cicero), Rhetorics ad Herennlum. Translated by Harry Caplan. Cambridge, Massachusetts* Harvard University Press, 1954* Pp. 433. Aristotle, Poetics. Translated by W. Hamilton Fyfe. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1927. Pp. 501. —— —, Poetics. Introduction, commentary, and appendices by D.W. Lucas. London* Oxford University Press, 1965. Pp. 313* — — Problems I I : Books XXII-XXXVIII. Translated by W.S. Hett; Rhetorica ad Alexandruro. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, Massachusetts* Harvard University Press, 1937. Pp. 455. ——— , Rhetoric. Commentary by Edward Meredith Cope. Edited by John Edwin Sandys* Cambridge: University Press, 1877. Pp. 303* f The Rhetoric of Aristotle. An expanded translation with sup plementary examples by Lane Cooper. New York: 0. Appleton and Co., 1932. Pp. 259. ------, Tlje Works of Aristotle. 11 vols. Translated under the editor ship of W.D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. Unpaged. Cicero, ^ Orators* Ite Fate.. Paradom St.olcorum. Partitions 2Ssii2£i£* 2 vols. Translated by U* Rackham* Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1942. Vol. I* Pp. 480. Vol. II* Pp. 438. Condillac, Etienne Bonnot d e., An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge. Facsimile of the 1756 translation of Thomas Nugent. Introduction by Robert G. Weyant. Gainesville* Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1971. Pp. 339. Condillac’s Treatise on the Sensations. Translated by Geraldine Carr. Los Angeles: University of Southern California School of Philo sophy, 1930. Pp. 250. Cope, Edward Meredith, The Rhetoric &£ A ristotle, with a Commentary. 3 voi&s Revised and edited by John Edwin Sandys. Cambridge* University Press, 1877. Vol. I: Pp. 303. Vol. II* Pp. 340. Vol. Ill: Pp. 270. Fraunce, Abraham, The Arcadian Rhetoric. Facsimile of the 1588 Thomas Orwin editio n . Menston, England! The Scolar Press, 1969. Unpaged. 228 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 Miller, Joseph M., and others (eds.), Readings Medieval Rhetoric. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973* Pp. 299* Pascal, Blaise, Provincial letters* No translator listed. Inndon: G riffith Farran Okeden and Welsh, undated. Pp. 324. Puttenham, George, The Arte off English Poegje; [June 15.89* Facsimile of the 1869 Edward Arber edition. English Reprints. Vol. IV. New Tories AMS Press, 1966. Unpaged. Q uintilianus, Marcus Fabius, In stitu tlo . O ratoiia. 2 vols. Translated by John Selby Watson. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903* Vel. I: Pp. 464* Vol. I I : Pp. 474* O ratorla: Book X. Edited by W. Peterson. Second edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1903* Pp* 129* ——— Oratorla: Book X II. Edited by R.G. Austin. London: Oxford University Press, 1948. Pp. 248. Thonssen, Lester (ed.), Selected Readings ffg, Rhetoric and Publio Speaking. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1942. Pp. 324* Wilson, Thomas, T&e Arte off Rhetoriaue. Facsimile of the 1553 Richard Grafton edition. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1962. Pp. 260. Secondary Rhetorical Sources Anderfeon, B asil, Sketches From & Library Window. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1923. Pp. 182. Baird, A. Craig, Rhetoric: £ Philosophical Inquiry. New York: Ronald Press Co., 1965. Pp. 246. Baldwin, Charles Sears, Ancient Rhetoric sfiji Poetic. New York: Mac millan, 1924. Fp* 261. ------, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. New York: Macmillan, 192o. Pp. 321. — ------, Rnnaffasance lite ra ry Theory and Practice.. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Pp. 251. Butcher, S.H., Some Aspects of t^e Greek; Genius. Port Washington, New York: Kennlkat Press, 1969. Pp. 396. (First published 1891.) Clark, Donald Lemon, Rhetoric Greco-Roman Education. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957. Pp. 285* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230 Cope, Eduard Meredith, An Introduction J&, A ristotle1 a Rhetoric. London: MacMillan and Co., 1867. Pp. 464* Copleston, Frederick, £ History & ffiBftflfflBlg* VpJtoaft 4> M s m U r sochyt Descartes to Leibniz. Garden City, Hew York: Douhleday and Co., 1963. Pp. 400. Croll, Morris W., Style. Rhetoric, and Rhythm. Edited by J. Max Patrick and Robert 0. Evans, with John M. Wallace and R.J. Schoeck. Princetons Princeton University Press, 1966. Pp. 450. Oonzl, Roland, Ig Grammai^s Generale s i Raisonnee de Port-Royal. Berne* A. Franke, 1967. Pp. 257. Encyclopaedia B ritanniea. 1950 ed ., s.v . "D escartes,” by Abraham Wolf. Fischer, Ludwig, Gebundene Rede: Qlchtimg und Rhetorik jfi s&r lis s r a r - iachen Theorie <3§s Barock i£ Deutschland. TSbirigan: Max Niemeyer, 1968. Pp. 296. France, Peter, Racine1 a Rhetoric. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Pp. 256. ------> Rhetoric sag Truth in Frances jte&sflE&Sfi to Diderot. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Pp. 282. Haley, Sister Marie Philip, Racine and the "Art Poetjque" of Soileau. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1938. Pp. 245. Hall, Verson, Jr., "Life of Julius Caesar Soaliger (1484-1558)." of J^e American Philosophigal Society. New Series, XL pt. 2 (1950), 86-170. Hauser, Arnold, Mannerism: Tge CgAsU 2£ i&e sS£ & £ o£ Modern A rt. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. Vol I (te x t): Pp. 425. ------, Tfcg, Sooial History o£ A^i, Volume g: Renaissance. Ijasm & m t Baroque. New York: Vintage Books, 1959. Pp. 225. Howell, Wilbur Samuel, Logic and Rhetoric in England. 1500-1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956. Pp. 411. — Poetics. Rhetoric, and Logic. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univer sity Press, 1975. Pp. 267. Howes, Raymond F. (ed.), Historical Studies of gtefogLfi ggd Rhetoricians. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press? 1961. Pp* 446* Knight, Isabel P ., £& Geometric Spi£& : ££& Ajsbe & fiflnftUflflj2£& tM French Ehil^ghtftnnprfc. New Haven: Yale U niversity Press, 1968. Pp, 321. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 Knox, R.A., Enthusiasm: 4 fihaetre i£ g j£ SU.te.SE2JL Ss2Msa« New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. Pp. 622. Kristelle’*, Paul Oskar, Renaissance Thought: The Claaio. Scholastic, and stvAi^a. New York: Harper and Row, 1961. Pp. 169. Ianhau, Richard A., 4 HapdHflt Rhetorical Terms. Berkeley: Univer sity of California Press, 1968. Lechner, Sister Joan Marf a, O.S.U., Renalss-sace Concepts o£ £&§, Ooaaonr places. New York: Pageant Press, 1962. Pp. 268. Miriam Joseph, Sister, Rhetoric ia SMSSSSSXS.'& SLSS** X tfongg Sh§2EZ of Renaissance Europe. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962. Pp. 421. (Pp. 42-284 omitted from this abridged edition.) Murphy, James J . (e d .), 4 Synoptic History o£ gjUggjg.^, RhstesftP* New York: Random House, 1972. Pp. 199. Murray, Linda, The Late Renaissance and Mannerism. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Pp. 215. Ong, Walter J . , Ramus: Method, and the Decay of Dialogue. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958. Pp. 4-06. —, Rhetoric. Ifomance. and technology. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1971. Pp. 348. Rea, L ilian , The Enthusiasts of Port-Royal. London: Methuen and Co., 1912. Pp. 354. Scaglione, Aldo, ^ e Classical TRe°XZ Composition: Fgom X£g Oglglns i£ the Present—4 Historical Survey. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1972. Pp. 447. Schneider, Bernd, D^e M ittelalterHchea Griec^jgh-LaV.jnl gchffl pbgJC" setzung der Aristotelischen Rhetorlk. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971. Pp. 203. Schwartz, Joseph and John A.Rycengan (e d s.), The Province a£ Rhetoric. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1965. Pp. 558. Selgel, Jerrold E., Rhetoric jsfid Philosophy la Renaissance M l§s . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. Pp. 268. Shearman, John, Mannerism. Hammondsuorth, Middlesex, England: Penquin Books, 1967. Pp. 216. Sonnino, Lee A., 4 Handbook £o Sixteenth Century Rhetoric. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. Pp* 277* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232 Turoell, Martin, The Glassioal Moment: Studies Corneille. Mollere and Racine. A New Directions Book. No place, publisher, or date given. Pp. Wallace, Karl R., Francis Bacon on Communication gad Rhetoric. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943* Pp. 277. Primary Musical Sources Aaron, Pietro, Toscanello is Music. 3 vols. Translated by Peter Bergquist. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music Press, 1970. Unpaged. Aristoxenus, Melik Rhvthmlk a olassischen Hellentums. 2 vols. Translated and annotated by R. Westphal. Hildesheim: Georg 01m, 1965* Aurelian of Reome, Tjjg Discipline o£ Music. Translated by Joseph Ponte. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music Press, 1968. Pp. 64. Bottrigarl, Hercole, Desiderio. or concerning the PJlSKteft toj^hex o£ various musical Translated by Carol MacClintock. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1962. Pp. 85. Butler, Charles, The Principles o£ Mustek £n fitag&Bg §£& Sej&jftg. Facsi mile o f the 1636 J . Haviland ed itio n . New York: Da Capo, 1970. Pp. 135. Caccini, Giulio, Le nuove musiche. Edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock. Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 197C. Pp. 140. Cardanus, Heironymus, Writings on Music,, Translated and edited by Clement A. Miller. Romes American Institute of Musicology, 1973* Fp* 227. Coclico, Adrian Petit, Musical Compendium. Translated by Albert Seay. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Mhsic Press, 1973« Pp. 31* Descartes, Rene, Compendium musicae. Translated by Walter Robert. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1961. Pp. 56. Gafarius, Franchinus, Practica musicae. Translated and edited by Irwin Young. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. Pp. 273* Geminiani, Francesco, A Treatise of Good Taste, in the Art of Mustek. Facsimile of the 1749 ed itio n . New York: Da Capo, 1969. Pp* 35. Glare an, Heinrich, Dodecachordon. 2 vols. Translated by Clement A. M iller. Roses American In s titu te of Musicology, 1965* Pp. 551* (paged consecutively.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Harriss, Ernest Charles, "Johann Matt he son's Par Yo^opp^^e Cqpell- malster: A Translation and Coranentary." Unpublished doctor's disser tation, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1969* Pp. 1578. Jaoobus Leodlensls, Speculum musicae. 7 vols. Edited by Roger Bragard. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1955. Unpaged. Lenneberg, Hans, "Johann Mat the son on Affect and Rhetoric in Music." Journal of Music Theory. II (1958), 47-84, 193-236. Masson, Charles, Nouveau i M i § & £ regales 22£E fl3ftBoglt3.9n & 2& musloue. Facsimile of the 1699 Christophs Ballard edition. Introduction by Imogene Horsley. New York: Da Capo, 1967. Pp. 127. Matthe8on, Johann, Dgj vollkommene fopftTlmetstfty. Facsimile o f the 1739 C. Herold edition. Kassel: B&renreiter, 1954* Pp« 506. Mersenne, Marin, Hannonie Universelle. Translated by Roger E. Chapman. The Hague: Martinus N ijhoff, 1957. Pp. 596. Morley, Thomas, A Plain and Easy Introduction $o Practical Music. Edited by R. Alec Harmon and with a Foreword by Thurston Dart. New York: W.W. Norton, 1953. Pp. 325. Piayford, John, Introduction io ££e S k ill o£ Mustek. London: J . Playford, 1655. Pp. 176. Scheibe, Johann A,, Critischer Musikus. Facsimile of the 1745 Breitkopf edition. Hildesheim: Georg 01m, 1970. Pp. 1081. Strunk, Oliver (e d .), Source Readings i s Music History. New York: tf.W. Norton, 1950. Pp. 919. Vinoentino, Nicola, L'antlsa musica ridotta aHa modems nrattica. Facsimile of the 1555 Barre edition. Kassel: Bftrenreiter, 1959. Pp. 161 • Walther, Johann Gottfried, Musicalisches Lexicon. Facsimile of the 1732 Deer edition. Kassels Blrenreiter, 1953. Pp. 668. Zarlino, Gioseffo, TJje Art of Counterpoint. Translated by Guy A. Marco and Claude V. Pali sea. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. Pp. 294* Secondary Musical Sources S ! s a a i a ’ M m O xford permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234 Aldrich, Putnam, BfayfcEa ifl Seventeenth-Cenfaar I m iS S MS22S&* New York* W.W. Norton, 1966, Pp, 188, Allen, Warren Dwight, Philosophies of Music H istory. New York* Dover Publications, 1962, Pp, 382, Bluae, F riedrich, Renaissance and Baroque Music* 4 Comprehensive. Surrey. Translated by M.D, H erter Norton, New York: W.W. Norton, 1967, Pp. 180. Buelov, George J , , “Music, Rhetoric, and the Concept of the Affections: A Selective Bibliography," Notes. XXX/2 (December 1973), 250-259. , «The ’Loci Topic!1 and Affect in Late Baroque Music* Heiniehsn's P ra ctica l Demonstration." Music Review. XXVII (1966), 161-176. ------, Thorough-Baas Accompaniment aspofflttnfi to JofeflflR Dg&£ Berkeley* University of California Press, 1966. Pp. 316. Bukofzer, Manfred F,, "Allegory in Baroque Music." Journal q£ the Wamirg Institute. Ill (1939-1940), 1-21. ----- , Music i s Baroque Era. New Ycvk* W.W. Norton, 1947. Pp. 489. Cannon, Beekman C,, Johann Mattheson* Spectator jn Music. New Haven* Yale University Press, 1947® Pp. 244. Carpenter, Nan Cooke, Mu^lc in tfcg, Medleyal and Renaissance U niversities. Norman* University of Oklahoma Press, 1958. Pp. 394. Crocker, Richard L., A History of Musical Style. New York* McGraw- H ill, 1966. Pp. 573. Einstein, Alfred, T&e Italian Madrigal. 3 vols. Translated by Alexander H.Krappe, Roger H, Sessions, and Oliver Strunk. Princeton* Princeton University Press, 1949. Vol. I and II* Pp. 888. Vol. Ill* Pp. 333. Fortune, Nigel, "Italian Secular Monody from 1600 to 1635* An Intro ductory Survey," Musical Quarterly. XXXIX (1953), 171-195. —— —, "Italian 17th-Century Singing." Music and Letters. XXXV (1954), 206-219. Georgiadea, Thrasybulos, Greek Music. Verse and Dance. Translated by Erwin Benedikt and Marie Louise Martinez. New Yorks Merlin Press, undated. Pp. 157. Goldron, Romain, Byzantine and Medieval Music. New York* H.S. Stutiman Co., 1968. Pp. 128, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235 , Music o£ Renaissance. New York: H.S. Stuttman Co., 1968. Pp. 128. Harmon, Alec, Wilfrid Mailers, and Anthony Milner, Man His Music: The Story o£ Musical Experience In West. New York: Oxford Univer sity Press, 1962. Pp;> 1172. Haydon, Glen, "On the Problem of Expression in Baroque Music." Journal of the American Musicological Society. I l l (1950), 113-119. Hughes, Dom Anselm and Gerald Abrahams (e d s.), Ars Nova and the Renais sance. 1300-15AO. Londons Oxford University Press, 1960. Pp. 565. Kanfmann, Henry William, Tfcg. life and Works of Nicola Vicentlno. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1966. Pp* 241. Kerman, Joseph, Opera Dram^. New York: Vintage Books, 1959. Pp. 269. Lang, Paul Henry, Music is Western Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton, 1941. Pp. 1107. LeCoat, Gerard George, "Musio and the Rhetoric of the Arts During the Age of Monteverdi." Unpublished doctor’s dissertation, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1973. Pp. 306. Lewis, Anthony and Nigel Fortune (ed s.), Opera and Church Music. 1630- 1750. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. Pp. 869. Lowinsky, Edward E., Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet. Translated by Carl Buchman. New York: Columbia U niversity Press, 1946. Pp. 191. MacClintock, Carol, "A Court Musician’s Songbook: Modena MS C 311 .B Journal of &g teflgaB MPgtafllSfflSfl* Society, IX (1956), 177-192. Glaches ge Wert (1535-1596): lif e ?nd Works. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1966. Pp. 285. Marks, Paul F., "The Rhetorical Element in Musical Sturm und Drang: Christian Gottfried Krause's 3£og gg£ muslkallschep poesie. :; Music Review. XXXIII (1972), 93-107. Musik iS Geschichte und Ge gen wart. Die, s.v . "A ffektenlehre," by Walter Serauky. —— — s.v. "Figuren, musikalisch-rhetorische," by Arnold Schmitz. Oliver, ’ Alfred Richard, Thg Encyclopedists as Critics of Music. New York: Columbia University Press. 1947. Pp. 227. Palisca, Claude, Baroque Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, 1968. Pp. 230. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236 ——- — . Girolaiao Med: L etters o£, Ancient find Modem Musio to Vincenzo G a lilei and C}ov«y^ Bardi. Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1960, Pp, 213. P irro ita , Nino, “Temperaments and Tendencies in the Florentine Camerata." Translated by Nigel Fortune, Musical Q uarterly. XL (1954), 169-189# Reese, Gustave, Music is j&e Renaissance, Revised edition. Nev York: W.W. Norton, 1959. Pp. 1022. Rowland, Daniel B*, Mannerism—ffivle and Mood: Afi Anatomy o£ Foqr Works fe Three Art Forma. New Havens Yale University Press, 1964. Pp. 136* Sadovsky, Rosalie D.L., “Jean-Baptiste Abbe Dubois: The Influence of Cartesian and Neo-Aristotelian Ideas on Music Theoiy and Practice." Unpublished doctor's dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1960. Pp. 278. Sendrey, Alfred, Music in ^ e &>.<&& fifig. ggJAfi&fflP M l§ 2£ MlaSiAfe* Cranbusy, New Jersey: Associated University Presses, i974. Pp. 489. Silva, Giulio, !'The Beginnings of the Art of 'Bel Canto.'" Musieal Quarterly. VIII (1922), 53-68. Smith, F. Joseph, Jacobi Leodiensla Speculum Musicae. 2 vols. Nev York: Institute of Medieval Music, 1966. Vol. I: Pp. 130. Vol. II: Pp. 156. Sterofeld; F.W. (ed.), Music from the Middle Ages j£ Renaissance. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973* Pp. 524. Stevenai, Denis (ed .), A History of Song. New York? W.W. Norton, 1961. Pp. 491. Ulrich, Homer and Paul Pisk, & History jg£ Musjc and Musical Style. New York: Harcourt, Brace and W^rld, 1963. Pp. 696. Waite, William G«, "Bernard Lamy, Rhetorician of the Passions." Studies & Mghteenth-Contury Music: A M M s to K&z£ Ggtajpgar on ^ SfigBttgai Birthday. Edited by H.C. Robbins Landon and Roger E. Chapman. Nev Yorks Oxford University Press, 1970. Pp. 388-396. ——— , The Rhvtfyn of Twelfth-Century Polyphony: Its Theory and Practice. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954* Pp. 395. Walker, D.P., "Musical Humanism in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries." Music Review. II (1941)» 1-13, 111-121, 220-227, 288-308? I l l (1942). 55-71. Wangera6e, Robert, Flemish Music and Society jn the Fifteenth and Six teenth Centuries. English version by Robert Erich Wolf* New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968, Pp. 347. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Wessel, Frederick T., "The AfTektenlehre in the Eighteenth Century." Unpublished doctor’s dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1955. Pp» 423* — — , "England and the Affektenlehre in the Eighteenth Century." Journal of the American Musicologicsl Society. VII (1954)? 24B-249. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.